Tuesday on FNC’s “The Will Cain Show,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said it was not constitutional for the Trump administration to deploy a military strike on a Venezuelan boat of alleged drug traffickers without any due process.
Paul said, “If this is a new policy, realize that off of Miami, a dozen ships will be interdicted today. They will be stopped, boarded, and searched. Some of them will have drugs, some of them won’t. The reason we board them before we blow the crap out of them is some of them don’t have drugs. Think about it this way. This is how people don’t quite get this. Let’s say there’s a house in your neighborhood and they’re all selling fentanyl, and thousands of people are dying, and you’re just so mad. Do you go over there and just kill them or burn them? No, you go to a judge and you get a warrant and you do that. We have an interdiction program.”
Cain said, “I feel like the difference there is you’re talking about an American citizen on American soil, and of course, your analogy—”
Paul said, “No, we’re talking about ships off of Miami. We’re talking people speeding along off of Miami. Are we going to just simply blow them up? No, we’re not. I mean, if we were, that would be extraordinary. That would be extraordinary to blow up ships.”
He added, “The outboard boat was 2,700 miles away. How do we know it was coming to the U.S.? So they may be selling drugs to Trinidad. Is it our job?”
Cain said, “Well, we are the main destination point for whatever percentage of drugs coming out of Central and South America.”
Paul said, “You don’t think anybody in the Caribbean is using drugs? What if they’re selling the drugs in Trinidad? Are we now the police for Trinidad? Are we going to blow up every boat? It’s just insane. You can’t blow up any ship that you think might have drugs on it.”
Cain said, “I appreciate your fidelity to limited government and the Constitution. I think the differentiating factor here—I’m going to have to leave it here—is they’ve been designated a foreign terrorist organization and they’re importing a chemical that’s killing tens of thousands of Americans.”
Paul said, “But not by Congress—not by Congress, by the president. That’s not constitutional. Under the Constitution, Congress must declare war.”
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