Why Did President Trump Order Strikes On Venezuelan Boats?
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.5 • 24.9K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national security correspondent Greg Myre, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:17.3 | Hi, this is Gary in Fairwood, Washington. I'm currently harvesting my pear tree for the first time. |
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| 0:24.5 | This podcast was recorded on Thursday, September 18th at 1233 p.m. |
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| 0:33.7 | Okay, enjoy the show. |
| 0:38.4 | Hope you don't have a partridge in it. |
| 0:44.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. |
| 0:46.4 | I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. |
| 0:48.1 | I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. |
| 0:50.4 | And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. |
| 0:53.7 | Today on the show, the U.S. military has launched two strikes on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean in recent days in what it says is an effort to prevent drugs from being smuggled into the U.S. |
| 1:06.3 | Greg, what is going on here? |
| 1:08.7 | Yeah, so let's just go to the basics here. According to the Trump |
| 1:11.8 | administration, two U.S. military strikes on boats have taken place in international waters in |
| 1:18.9 | the Caribbean. One back on September 2nd, 11 people were killed, according to the administration, |
| 1:24.6 | and then another one just this Monday with three people |
| 1:27.6 | killed in the second attack. In both cases, the U.S. military airstrikes turned the boats into |
| 1:34.4 | fireballs based on video that has been released, and based on what the Trump administration |
| 1:39.7 | is saying, the boats were in international waters, but we don't know exactly where, and there's |
... |
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