President Donald Trump revealed that the U.S. military had “shot out” a Venezuelan “drug-carrying boat” on Tuesday, adding that there were a “lot of drugs on that boat.”
During a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump explained that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine had given “a little bit of a briefing” regarding the strike on the drug-carrying vessel.
“When you come out, and when you leave the room, you’ll see that we just….. over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat…. a drug-carrying boat,” Trump said during a press conference. “Lot of drugs on that boat, and you’ll be seeing that and you’ll be reading about that — it just happened moments ago.”
“Our great general — head of the joint chiefs of staff, who has been so incredible, including what took place in Iran — knocking out potential nuclear power for [a] long time to come, I think within a month they would’ve had it if we didn’t do what we did,” Trump added. “He gave us a little bit of a briefing…. there’s more where that came from. We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time, and these came out of Venezuela.”
In a post on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also confirmed that the U.S. military had “conducted a lethal strike” on a drug-carrying boat that had “departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.”
“As @potus just announced moments ago, today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Carribean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Rubio said in his post.
Breitbart News’s Christian K. Caruzo reported in August that the United States had deployed “three Aegis guided-missile destroyers near Venezuelan waters” as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “address threats from Latin American drug cartels.”
A separate U.S. official source detailed to Reuters under condition of anonymity that “about 4,000 sailors and Marines” are expected to be committed to be Trump administration’s efforts in the southern Caribbean region. The official further said that “several P-8 spy planes, warships and at least one attack submarine,” would also complement the military assets in the broader region in a several-month-long operation in international airspace and waters.
The Venezuelan government has also called for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to help stop the United States’ “efforts to combat drug cartels in Caribbean international waters.”
Read the full article here
