Republican senators vocally defended the Trump administration over the “double tap” airstrike against a boat near Venezuela.
The incident has been hotly debated over recent weeks, along with the White House’s other military actions against boats in the Caribbean.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) addressed reporters on Tuesday and said he’s “losing patience on the whole thing because I think it’s ridiculous that we’re having this conversation.”
He pointed out that “underneath [President Barack] Obama, he had 500 strikes, 3700 different individuals were killed,” and that “there wasn’t a big show about this.”
“What you guys are all upset about is the hemisphere that's working in. The hemisphere is these are drug, terrorist organizations,” Mullin continued. “The same people that Obama went after, some people we've been over for the last 24 years were terrorist organizations that were wanting to kill Americans. There have been more Americans killed because these terrorist cartels drugging our streets, drugging every one of your all's streets, every one of your all's towns, every one of the audiences towns.”
Mullin stated that cartels “killed more people in 2024 on our streets than we lost in the entire Vietnam War.”
These are terrorist organizations that are poisoning our streets. The President has the authority to do so. The argument is, is this too close to our shores? Does anybody doubt that these are terrorist organizations? Does anybody have a question about these being terrorist organizations? What's the difference between Obama attacking these individuals when they were deemed terrorist organizations in the Middle versus the ones that are here right now poisoning our streets?
.@SenMullin: "Does anybody doubt that these are terrorist organizations?... So what's the difference between Obama attacking these individuals when they were deemed terrorist organizations in the Middle East vs. the ones that are here right now poisoning our streets?" 🔥 pic.twitter.com/II5T9kpiky
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 16, 2025
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) defended Admiral Frank Bradley, who ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan boat after the first strike had disabled it. He said criticizing Bradley and other service members who carry out these attacks “is to indict the very system that was used bipartisanly for the last 24 years.”
“I personally was involved in many of these operations, from kinetic strikes to direct action operations. The process we have is legally sound. It's been supported by legal opinions for a quarter century now of how we find these people, we fix them, and we finish them,” the senator added. “Keep in mind, if we don't drop a bomb and we decide to interdict, as is being said by many folks, we have an obligation to send a team to interdict. When we make that decision, you're putting our lives at risk. You're putting Americans' lives at risk.”
.@TimSheehyMT: "To go after the brave men and women in uniform who are conducting these attacks is to indict the very system that was used bipartisanly for the last 24 years. I personally was involved in many of these operations...and the process we have is legally sound. It’s… pic.twitter.com/3helucDpJo
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 16, 2025
Other Republican lawmakers have questioned the airstrikes, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). During a Fox News appearance, the senator discussed the “double tap” incident, pointing out that “a bunch of the people on the boats died, but two people survived.”
“Did we detain them and check them for drugs or drug residue? Did we gather the evidence from the wreckage and then prosecute them? No, we just said, ‘Oh well, we’re going to send you back to your country,’” Paul added. “So I truly think that you cannot have a policy where you just allege that someone is guilty of something and then kill them.”
The reason being that we interdict ships all the time off the Coast of Miami, off the Coast of California. And the Coast Guard statistics say that about 25% of the boats that we stop to search don't have any drugs. So if one out of four of the boats don't have drugs on them, what person would justify blowing up people when one out of four boats may well not have drugs on them?
Two people survived one of the recent boat strikes. They were not detained, not checked for drugs, not prosecuted. They were sent back to be tried in their own country. If the strike was based on the assumption that the boat was carrying drugs, and the survivors weren’t even… pic.twitter.com/S1QXew1ws5
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) October 22, 2025
Ohio Rep. Mike Turner (R-10) warned that if the military carried out another airstrike after the first had disabled the vessel, “I agree that that would be an illegal act.”
The military has killed at least 95 people in airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean. The White House argues that these boats were smuggling dangerous narcotics into the United States.
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