Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the United States has “absolute and complete authority” to kill suspected drug smugglers in “defense of the American people.”

Hegseth was asked by a reporter on Thursday what legal authority the Pentagon invoked when it conducted an airstrike in international waters against a boat that the Trump administration alleges was carrying 11 “narcoterrorists” and members of the Venezuela-based crime group Tren de Aragua.

He responded, “We have the absolute authority and complete authority to conduct that.”

“First of all, just the defense of the American people alone. A hundred thousand Americans were killed each year under the previous administration because of an open border and open drug traffic flow. That is an assault on the American people

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