Just miles off the coast of Venezuela, a speedboat headed toward Trinidad and Tobago,

suddenly goes up in flames.

It's been bombed by the U.S. military.

All 11 people on board are killed.

We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat,

a lot of drugs in that boat. The Trump administration says that the boat was carrying drugs bound for the United States.

Since this first strike on September 2nd, the United States military has conducted airstrikes

against three more boats originating from Venezuela, destroying the boats and killing at least six more people. More than 2,000 pounds of cocaine was found in the wreckage of one of the boats.

President Trump says that the doctrine of national self-defense justifies using the military against drug smugglers.

The government of Venezuela has denied responsibility for the boats,

accused the United States of waging an undeclared war on the

country, and threatened to retaliate. As you can see, this kind of kinetic action has not stopped,

and there are a ton of questions surrounding the legality of that, particularly...

Many legal experts question the legality of the Trump administration's decision to treat

narcotic trafficking as a matter for military action rather than for law enforcement.

Some critics go as far as to argue that Trump administration is engaged in extrajudicial

executions.

From the Council on Foreign Relations, welcome to the president's inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, and today I'm speaking with Matt Waxman, adjunct senior fellow for law and foreign policy at CFR and a professor of law at Columbia University. We're going to discuss the legality of the Trump administration's military strikes against drug traffickers and their implications for

American foreign policy.

Matt, thank you for joining me.

Thanks for having me back, Jim.

Matt, I should note that the legality of military operations is not an academic question for you.

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