Trump says U.S. is engaged in official ‘armed conflict’ to claim emergency war powers

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00:00Trump says U.S. is engaged in official armed conflict to claim emergency war powers.

00:06In a confidential notification to Congress obtained by The New York Times,

00:10President Donald Trump declared the U.S. is now engaged in an official armed conflict against drug cartels,

00:16marking a turning point in the government's fight against organized crime.

00:20Trump sent the notice to several congressional committees.

00:23According to The Times, the notice, which was sent to several congressional committees,

00:27adds new detail to the administration's thinly articulated legal rationale

00:32for why three U.S. military strikes the president ordered on boats in the Caribbean Sea last month,

00:38killing all 17 people aboard them, should be seen as lawful rather than murder.

00:43The Trump administration classified drug cartels as unlawful combatants.

00:48The Associated Press also obtained the administration's notice,

00:52which classified drug cartels operating in the Caribbean as unlawful combatants,

00:56and described the situation as a non-international armed conflict.

01:01Trump calls cartel fight a war, claiming wartime powers.

01:05Reporters Charlie Savage and Eric Schmidt, who broke the story,

01:09explained the significance behind the report.

01:11Donald Trump's move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict

01:16means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers, legal specialists said.

01:22In an armed conflict, as defined by international law,

01:26a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat,

01:30detain them indefinitely without trials, and prosecute them in military courts.

01:35Trump's message confuses the rules around emergency war powers.

01:39The Times cited Jeffrey S. Korn, a retired Army judge advocate general,

01:43who warned that Trump's message blurs the rules around emergency war powers

01:47because cartel members are not directly fighting the U.S.

01:51Korn called the president's action an abuse that crossed a serious legal boundary.

01:56This is not stretching the envelope, he said.

01:58This is shredding it.

01:59This is tearing it apart.