Are The Strikes On Venezuelan Boats ‘War’ – And Do The Rules Of War Apply?

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

News, Daily News, Politics

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

New questions have emerged surrounding the United States’ military strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat in early September. We discuss what we know and why the White House appears to be distancing itself from the decision to order multiple strikes on the same boat.

This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.

This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.

Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from Bayer.
0:02.3	Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven.
0:09.5	This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward.
0:13.0	Innovations that save lives and feed the world.
0:15.8	Science Delivers.com.
0:18.2	Good morning. This is Bob Nichols.
0:20.6	Welcomeing you to the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm out in the beautiful
0:26.2	city of Richmond, running like my seventh half marathon. There's a lot of fun people out here today.
0:34.3	But what I most love are the signs that they made.
0:39.7	There's one called Paine is a French word for bread.
0:45.4	The time is 107 p.m. on Wednesday, December 3rd.
0:51.5	Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast. All right. Enjoy the show.
1:01.9	Is he actually in the middle of the half? I think he was actually in it. Sounded like it, right? I think he was actually running.
1:07.4	Usually people do it like from the finish or the start. Yeah. It's a great finish. And it's a great marathon and a great finish. It goes like really steep on the downhill. So I hope Bob made it. Well, I hope you zoomed right to the finish. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Frank O'Donias. And I also cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security.
1:27.9	And today on the show, we want to look at the military actions the Trump administration has taken
1:32.8	against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The White House alleges the vessels are used for drug
1:38.6	trafficking, and those aboard the ships are narco-terrorists. In these strikes, more than 80 people have been killed.
1:46.3	Greg, the strikes came up yesterday in a cabinet meeting at the White House where
1:50.4	Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked questions about that first boat that was targeted
1:56.8	back in September. Can you talk about what we learned from that? Yeah, so this first strike took place on September 2nd. And we learned about it after the fact at that time.
2:07.2	And it was a suspected drugboat in the Caribbean. Now, 11 people were killed. The Trump administration released a brief bit of video at that time.
2:15.8	It was a first of more than 20 strikes and more than 80 deaths,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.