Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert. And I am smiling because, well, I love seeing Nicole and seeing you.

And we do have some good stuff by the end of the hour. So we will get to that, I promise.

The top story is Trump trying to seize power with the Pentagon doing several strikes.

Now the fourth strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela. This is, of course, at a time where we have other problems. The U.S. government is partially shut down. Of course, foreign policy can continue. Do you have these rather dramatic scenes? They've killed four men who, according to the U.S. were accused of smuggling drugs. But that, again, is according to the Trump administration. This is not exactly some legal process. We don't have public evidence yet. Whatever

the government releases will follow. U.S. military has killed about 21 people, according to the

evidence we have, that it asserts we're drug traffickers, and there's no due process for that.

So we're in more of a war posture, like I said, than a domestic legal one. Now, the wider context is Trump using the word war

in a host of settings, war on U.S. cities, war for training grounds, war on these cartels,

and trying to say they're unlawful combatants. Now, the wider context is the big problem here.

If you've followed American foreign policy, it has aggrandized executive power, sometimes without Congress or legal proceedings, under many different administrations. Sometimes the threat was considered urgent and high, like after 9-11 or dealing with individuals credibly believed to be foreign operational terrorists.

Drug dealing or international cartels are also a big problem for the U.S. and one you want

to thwart, but legally under foreign policy, not necessarily at the level of post-911 terror.

And again, that's just one piece. Then you have the crackdown at home, where troops are being

asked to do things that are unprecedented without governor's approval, going to Tennessee and Memphis

this week. Trump threatening Portland. There's reports that 200 Oregon troops are now going what they

call initial military trading, according to this ABC News account, Oregon already suing to try to stop what they view

as potentially unconstitutional deployment, saying Trump doesn't have the authority there. And then

there's ICE, which again, has long operated under both administrations to do types of immigration

enforcement. But under every other administration, including Republican ones, it has generally

had a hierarchy and dealt with

perceived potential or active criminals who are engaged in, say, the drug dealing, the violence,

other things differently than just anyone who might be undocumented. Well, those days have shifted

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