RAND PAUL: VENEZUELA STRIKES ARE ILLEGAL

Since the beginning of September, the US military has extrajudicially murdered at least 37 people in a series of airstrikes on small boats in the Caribbean, now extending to the Pacific as well. Trump claims without a shred of evidence that the targets were all drug smugglers affiliated with the long-dormant gang "Tren de Aragua," as part of a broader propaganda war painting Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro as the head of a nonexistent cartel. The vast majority of victims have been Venezuelan, but the rapidly rising death toll now also includes Colombian, Trinidadian, and Ecuadorian nationals.

The brazen and patently illegal nature of these attacks is now sparking disquiet even within the ranks of Trump's own party. In this interview with Piers Morgan, Republican senator from Kentucky and longtime libertarian firebrand Rand Paul excoriates the president for launching a de facto undeclared war without any semblance of congressional oversight or due process. Even more surprisingly, he directly calls out the falsehood of Trump's justification for the strikes, pointing out that the Drug Enforcement Agency itself denies any Venezuelan involvement in the United States' homegrown fentanyl crisis.