Alex Horton

So, I mean, there's a Chinese menu somewhere in the Pentagon of who to attack and where.

That matters on Trump's preference, right?

If he wants to hit these cartels at more...

meaningful way, like a lab or a facility or a storage place, perhaps that is one option rather than striking military forces in Venezuela.

You know, an air defense system or military barracks, that would be far different than hitting a drug lab or hitting a distribution point.

If President Trump wanted to attack military targets in a limited campaign that ramped up, he is certainly able to do that with what he has in the region now.

If he wants to strike cartel and drug-type groups in Venezuela short of hitting military targets, he can certainly do that.

He has the capability, and it seems like he has the desire to.

Whether that all comes to play is anyone's guess, but the pieces are in place for something like that to happen.

You know, I can't get to the president's head, but, you know, we do know if his stated goal is to, and Hegseth's goal, is to adversely impact the ability of drug traffickers to move product.

Venezuela is probably among the last on the list in the region you would focus on.

Because Colombia and Ecuador, who are U.S.

allies, send the vast majority of cocaine up.

And not just in the Caribbean, they send it in the Pacific.

So if your stated goal was to do drugs and you had no designs about Venezuela or regime change or anything like that, you would construct an operation focused solely on the Pacific.

and maybe a little bit of the Caribbean to get your money's worth of traffickers.

The volume of drugs and the volume of ships is in the Pacific.

And a few strikes have happened there, but not all of them.

And certainly not some of the more consequential ones like this first one.

I think strikes in Venezuela are, you know, it's hard to say if it's becoming more or less likely as time goes on and the diplomatic talks go the direction.