Natalie Kitro-Eff

Is this draft bill you're describing basically an authorization for a war on narco-terror, similar to the post-9-11 war on terror in the Middle East?

Is that what we're looking at?

Well, let's talk about Venezuela and what the Maduro regime has to do with all of this, because you hear the Trump administration saying this is about fighting drug trafficking, but Venezuela is not a major source of fentanyl coming into the United States, right?

So what's this about?

Why the focus on Venezuela right now?

Is there any evidence of that, Charlie?

And yet this is used as part of this broader campaign targeting Maduro and Venezuelans, the deportations in the U.S.

and now these strikes, you're saying.

Meaning what?

Meaning capture him?

Meaning regime change?

It seems from everything you've said that what Trump is doing in ordering these strikes on these boats off the coast of Venezuela, it has a lot of audiences and potential objectives.

They threaten the cartels on the one hand.

They threaten Maduro on the other.

They also send a message to all the people in the United States who are affected by drugs in one way or another, you know, by overdoses, that they are taking this seriously.

There's a way in which

this policy really has some benefits for the Trump administration.

What you're pointing to is the fact that what Trump has already been doing has pushed the bounds of what's normal in terms of the use of U.S.

military forces, both abroad and at home, and that these strikes may lead to another slippery slope on what becomes permissible.

Charlie, thank you so much for your time.