00:00Rubio, just a day after a U.S. military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela.
00:06The U.S. has offered no evidence about who or what was on that boat,
00:11but Rubio suggested the military took the most effective action.
00:17Let me say this. The United States has long, for many, many years,
00:22established intelligence that allow us to interdict and stop drug boats.
00:25And we did that. And it doesn't work. Interdiction doesn't work because these drug cartels,
00:31what they do is they know they're going to lose, you know, 2% of their cargo.
00:35They bake it into their economics. What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.
00:42President Trump suggests the strike is an unmistakable warning to drug traffickers in the region.
00:48He said, quote, a lot of other people won't be doing it again.
00:51The week's events have heightened tensions with Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro,
00:57who President Trump claims is in control of a notorious criminal organization overseeing the drug trade.
01:03CNN contributor Stefano Posebon is in Caracas with more details.
01:08There is still a lot of questions unanswered around the news that was broken by the President of the United States,
01:14saying that the United States took out, or blew up, a speedboat with 11 alleged drug traffickers
01:23that was travelling from Venezuela.
01:25And we understand that this strike occurred on international waters.
01:29We are in a country that has seen, of course, growing U.S. pressures in the last few weeks.
01:35And we're talking about at least seven warships, as well as one nuclear-powered submarine
01:42that are roaming around the Southern Caribbean Sea in front of the coast of Venezuela.
01:48But if you come here to Caracas, you don't really feel like this is a country in high tension.
01:55You can see that we are in a suburb that is quite culturally close to the Caribbean Sea.
02:00And life goes on as usual.
02:03Of course, it's a country that is still dealing with a deep economic crisis.
02:09And it's still a country that is working under an anti-democratic government.
02:14However, it doesn't feel like that war is exploding or is coming to these streets.
02:19And that is also the message that I think the Maduro's government is trying to put out,
02:24not just to its own people, but to the international community as well.
02:28Joining me now to discuss this is Christopher Sabatini.
02:58...questions later.
03:08The video is out.
03:10It's been verified by independent sources, but it's 11 people on a speedboat that, first of all,
03:16speedboats carrying drugs don't tend to have 11 people.
03:19But second, Trump claims that it was heading to the United States, and there is no way a speedboat of that size
03:25could make it from Venezuela across the Caribbean to the United States.
03:29So there's that.
03:30But again, this is, do we really need seven naval ships off the coast of Venezuela
03:36to interdict individual boats, speedboats mostly, of 11 or fewer people?
03:41So it's both a risky violation of international laws governing interdiction of drugs,
03:48certainly U.S. protocol on interdicting drugs, but also it's really, if you will,
03:53sort of hitting a small nail with a large sledgehammer.
03:57This is a really ridiculous out-of-scope policy for boats of that size and probably will continue at this rate.
04:04And given that, how dangerous is a strike like this in terms of triggering a conflict
04:10or potentially triggering a conflict in the region,
04:13with U.S. Secretary of State Rubio saying the U.S. is set to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations?
04:21It's very risky.
04:22First of all, again, the shoot-first-ask-questions policy makes it even more risky
04:26because typically these boats are boarded, they check for drugs,
04:31and then they're arrested and the drugs are seized.
04:32So we don't know, again, if this boat was in fact a drug.
04:35Let's take the government's word for it.
04:36But in the future, this policy of just shooting at boats that seem to be speeding somewhere
04:41risks that it could, first of all, take out boats that are laden with human traffic, if you will,
04:46sort of undocumented immigrants.
04:48You could also risk taking out regular fishing boats or even military boats
04:52that could suddenly escalate the conflict with the Venezuelan government
04:55and really turn this into a much larger conflagration
04:59than certainly Marco Rubio and Peter Hesgath are pretending it could.
05:04But there's also the issue here is what are the boats really there for?
05:07And I argue that the boats are effectively there really to try to scare the Maduro government
05:11into basically collapsing or resigning and setting the stage for some form of transition.
05:18I don't think it would be a democratic transition, certainly directed by the generals around Maduro,
05:23but this is more than just the drug addiction efforts that Marco Rubio and others have claimed.
05:28This is really a larger policy regime change.
05:31You think it's that extreme?
05:33I mean, you talked about this overreach.
05:34You clearly feel that this type of strike raises questions about the intended mission
05:41of the U.S. naval operations off the coast of Venezuela.
05:44And there's been a lot of speculation from it being a drug operation to the possibility of an invasion
05:51and many things in between.
05:53But that seems extreme.
05:57What's your basis for that understanding of what could be going on here?
06:03I don't think an invasion is likely.
06:05There are only about 4,000 military personnel on those boats in the submarine.
06:09I think it's more about potentially taking out individual targets, both in the ocean as well
06:15as potentially inside through drone attacks and the like.
06:18But it's also to send a signal.
06:20The administration has made very clear that they consider this government of Maduro illegitimate,
06:25and indeed it is.
06:26It stole the elections last year.
06:27It has made very clear that it wants him out.
06:29It doubled the bounty on his head to $50 million.
06:32And it's also leaked this document that it is giving free license to the Pentagon to take out
06:40those that it is designated as heads of terror narco cartels.
06:44And it named high-level officials of the Maduro government those sorts of terrorists.
06:50So this is really about trying to rattle the government.
06:53It's not about to intervene.
06:54But for a long time, the Trump administration has bargained, including in its first term,
06:58that what it can do is ramp up economic sanctions, try to ramp up political pressure internationally
07:04and domestically in the hopes that the elements of the military will defect to remove Maduro.
07:09This is just taking this the next step.
07:11An invasion isn't likely.
07:13There could be more targeted kinetic attacks, but this is really about saber-rattling.
07:17Now, Maduro is not particularly popular in the South American region.
07:22But if the Trump administration were to move forward and try to take him out in some way
07:30or some change of regime, what would be the tolerance across South America for that?
07:37There raises a whole series of questions, Rosemary.
07:39First of all, within the country, you're right.
07:42Probably in the Solon election of last year, Maduro got less than 30 percent, which he claimed,
07:46but probably far less.
07:47So within the country, he's deeply unpopular.
07:49But any sort of effort to take out the head of state or even take out, again, a sort of
07:55selected-type strike that we saw, for example, in Syria and Iraq against ISIS, would certainly
08:01rattle the entire regional community.
08:04You would see governments from Brazil to Colombia speak out against violations of national
08:09sovereignty.
08:10It would basically shatter U.S. relations and trust within the Hamas fear, which were already
08:14severely weakened.
08:15So it would trigger a reaction.
08:17No one really wants to look like they're embracing Maduro or defending him, but they'll
08:22defend national sovereignty because that's a fundamental international norm.
08:26Christopher Sabatini, many thanks for joining us.
08:29We appreciate it.
08:30Well, President Trump says the U.S. military has killed at least 11 people in a targeted
08:35strike on a vessel allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean.
08:39He claims the boat from Venezuela was linked to the Tran de Arga, the criminal organization
08:45that the U.S. considers a terrorist group and one which President Trump has cited in his
08:50aggressive immigration crackdown.
08:52Secretary of State Marco Rubio is promising more details on what the U.S. calls a counter-drug
08:58mission.
08:59The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean has angered Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
09:21President Trump accuses him of controlling the cartel involved.
09:24President Maduro has said Venezuela will not battle threats from the U.S.
09:29CNN's Jennifer Hansler has more on the strike from Washington.
09:33The U.S. military on Tuesday conducted a deadly strike against an alleged drug vessel that they
09:39say was operated by the cartel Tran de Aragua.
09:43President Donald Trump sent in a post that 11 people were killed in this strike, which he
09:47said took place in international waters.
09:49Secretary of State Marco Rubio had earlier referred to the lethal strike taking place in the Southern
09:54Caribbean, and he said the boat had departed from Venezuela.
09:58The military action against the cartels is a significant escalation by the Trump administration
10:03and could have severe implications for the region.
10:07The Trump administration earlier this year designated a number of cartels, including Tran de Aragua,
10:12as foreign terrorist organizations.
10:14In his post on Tuesday, President Trump said, quote,
10:18Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United
10:22States of America.
10:23Beware.
10:24Secretary of State.
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