Natalie Kitro-Eff

And those strikes have come after Trump has been building up a military presence in the Caribbean Sea for weeks now.

You cover national security.

So help us understand what's going on here.

Safe to say these are extraordinary and unprecedented moves.

Okay, so take me to the beginning of this story.

Where does all this start?

Charlie, it sounds like, one, this was a remarkable moment, and two, that you were actually skeptical that this was even a drug boat.

It wasn't clear based on the evidence.

What have they said exactly, Charlie, about the rationale behind this?

The argument is that these drug trafficking groups are threatening Americans, are killing Americans with the drugs that they smuggle into the United States, and that that is enough to declare them terrorists.

Take our word for it, basically.

And you're saying the boat was actually facing away from the United States when those strikes happened.

So we know it's not a one-off.

It's now something of a pattern.

The point is, in each of these cases, the Trump administration is not giving us enough information to independently assess really what happened.

If we are to take them at their word for a moment that these were drug traffickers smuggling a bunch of drugs into the U.S., can the U.S.

military just shoot boats like this out of the water?

Is that allowed?

Well, how is the Trump administration legally justifying this then?

Like within the general outlines of the rationale that you mentioned, what's the legal basis that they're using to say, you know, this is OK, this is permissible?