Why is Trump blowing up Venezuelan "drug boats"?
Americast
BBC
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s episode, we look at some of the stories “under the radar”, away from the main news headlines in the United States. Why is the Trump administration blowing up boats which it says are carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States? Donald Trump has described the latest strike which killed four people, as “an act of kindness” saving the lives of thousands of Americans. Sarah, Justin and Marianna unpack what we do and don’t know about the strikes, the evidence presented by the Pentagon and the justification.
We also to look at why next year’s Super Bowl headliner, Bad Bunny, has attracted the ire of the Secretary for Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and Trump’s MAGA supporters.
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 Presenter • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations Senior Correspondent
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This episode was made by Rufus Gray, Alix Pickles, and Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Today we're going to do one of our AmeriCast Under the Radar episodes, |
| 0:09.6 | where we specifically look at important events that are going underreported |
| 0:15.3 | because of all the other news that there is out of the Trump administration. |
| 0:18.2 | And today we want to look at the stories about boats, allegedly smuggling |
| 0:22.4 | drugs from Venezuela into the United States, which the Trump administration are simply blowing |
| 0:28.6 | out of the water and then taking those videos and proudly posting them on social media. Welcome to |
| 0:34.5 | AmeriCast. |
| 0:38.5 | AmeriCast. |
| 0:40.6 | Americaast from BBC News. |
| 0:46.0 | When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. |
| 0:48.5 | We are the sickest country in the world. |
| 0:52.0 | Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? |
| 0:54.2 | Of course the president supports peaceful protest. |
| 0:55.1 | What a stupid question. |
| 0:57.5 | Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? |
| 1:07.3 | Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC's Washington Bureau. |
| 1:09.7 | And it is Mariana, aka misinformation, in the worldwide headquarters of America's in London. And it's Justin sitting alongside Marianna in those same worldwide headquarters. We've not sat next to each other ages. No, it's really exciting. I've been in San Francisco. I've actually been in America, you see. Yeah, which gives you kudos that I can't even pretend to have. And we're going to talk later on. I should say right |
| 1:28.3 | at the beginning, we are going to talk about another thing as well that we all might have missed |
| 1:32.2 | if we hadn't decided to talk about it today. But it is really interesting. Conservative commentators, |
| 1:37.1 | MAGA influencers, criticising the choice of the Super Bowl half-time show, this all-important |
| 1:43.6 | piece of Americana, the one for the next Super Bowl, |
... |
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