President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Donald Trump has been using fictional figures to justify his controversial military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean near Venezuela.

“Every boat kills about 25,000 people,” Trump said in a speech last week. “Every one of those boats is responsible for the death of 25,000 American people, and the destruction of families,” he said in a speech Sunday. “Probably saved at least 100,000 lives, American lives – Canadian lives – by taking out all those boats coming in,” he said while sitting with Canada’s prime minister at the White House on Tuesday.

These numbers do not make any sense.

The total number of US overdose deaths from all d

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