What Next - Trump Blew Up 11 People. Is That Legal?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, Donald Trump announced the military had blown up what he said was a drug-smuggling boat. This week, we still don’t know why he believes the boat was full of smugglers.
But even if they were trafficking drugs, can the president legally blow up 11 people in international waters?
Guests: Shane Harris, staff writer covering national security and intelligence for The Atlantic.
Ana Vanessa Herrero, journalist based in Caracas, Venezuela and reporting on South America for the Washington Post.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There are some things you should always check, like the hygiene rating on your local takeaway, |
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| 1:10.8 | It's a sign of the times that last week, the President of the United States snuck the news of a major |
| 1:12.9 | military action into the end of an Oval Office news conference. So thank you all very much. |
| 1:20.9 | You are going to leave me alone now. You're not going to call me anymore and talk about this subject, |
| 1:25.6 | right? You promise. This news conference was on Monday, September 2nd. |
| 1:29.3 | Trump was just ushering senators and congressmen away from the podium when he suddenly |
| 1:34.8 | got serious. |
| 1:36.3 | When you come out and when you leave the room, you'll see that we just, over the last |
| 1:41.7 | few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs |
| 1:48.0 | in that boat, and you'll be seeing that and you'll be reading about that. |
| 1:53.1 | It just happened moments ago. |
... |
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