Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton hysterically claimed that the Trump administration could start to “murder” American citizens because they’re combating narcoterrorists at sea.
Moulton made the allegation during a Sunday appearance on CNN, where he accused the administration of crossing moral and legal lines in its efforts to stop deadly drug shipments moving through international waters.
The Massachusetts Democrat, who is seemingly creating controversial soundbites to drum up media attention for his Senate campaign, claimed the president’s aggressive strategy against traffickers could soon expand into something far more alarming.
He warned viewers that the administration’s actions amounted to what he described as killings on open waters, adding that the American public should pay close attention to the implications.
Moulton said during the interview that “The President of the United States and his secretary of Defense are conducting murder on the high seas. They’re committing murder and Americans should care,” later insisting that while citizens have no sympathy for traffickers, those individuals “don’t get summarily executed.”
He cautioned that if such tactics were used “off the coast of America with people that we don’t know, just give it time before Donald Trump starts doing the same kind of thing to people we do know right here at home.”
The administration has designated major South American drug cartels as terrorist organizations and deployed roughly 15,000 troops to the Caribbean Sea as part of its expanded mission targeting narcoterrorists moving fentanyl and other lethal substances toward the United States.
The military has reportedly destroyed nearly two dozen vessels and submarines in international waters that officials said were carrying illegal drugs.
Democrats intensified their attacks after a Washington Post report last month claimed that War Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a “kill them all” directive that allegedly resulted in survivors on a destroyed trafficking vessel being targeted.
Top military leaders pushed back. Adm. Frank Bradley disputed the report in a closed-door congressional hearing last week, insisting that Hegseth never issued that an order.
Bradley said he made the decision in a September incident to authorize a follow-up strike after determining that the vessel still posed a threat.
Democrats have pushed for the release of classified video from the operation. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who reviewed the footage, said on NBC News that he had “no problem” with releasing it as long as no national security risks were involved, adding that the Department of War may have concerns about exposing sensitive “tactics and techniques” or operational secrets.
“I would trust Secretary Hegseth and his team to make the decision about whether they can declassify and release the video. But again, there’s nothing remarkable on that video in my opinion,” he stated.
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During a Q&A session at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth declined to say whether the Department would release video of the strike.
He said his team was still reviewing the material to avoid revealing sensitive information from an active mission.
While responding to questioning from Fox News’s Lucas Tomlinson, Hegseth explained that any decision must protect “sources, methods” and ongoing operations.
He added that officials had to be careful with releasing information because personnel are still actively conducting similar missions.
Hegseth also defended the broader anti-cartel strategy. He told the audience that “If you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you,” adding that he “fully” backed the strike ordered by Bradley and later stating, “I would have made the same call myself.”
President Trump signaled openness to declassifying the video of the second strike when speaking to reporters Wednesday.
“I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem,” he commented.
Trump argued that decisive action against drug traffickers saves American lives, stating that “Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives,” and noting that sea-based drug traffic had dropped by 91 percent.
Democrats continued their criticism on Sunday. Sen. Adam Schiff urged the administration to release the video and allow the public to judge the operation.
Schiff told NBC News’s Kristen Welker that “if the Pentagon and our Defense secretary are so proud of what they’re doing, let the American people see that video. Let the American people see two people standing on a capsized boat or sitting on a capsized boat and deliberately killed.”
He then argued that viewers should decide “whether they’re proud of what their country is doing,” adding, “I can’t imagine people would be proud of that.”
Schiff also took aim at Cotton’s comments, saying the Arkansas senator suggested that the victims’ actions on the capsized boat were irrelevant.
Schiff insisted that “it does matter,” arguing that whether the individuals were signaling distress should not be brushed aside.
He continued by claiming that an “unauthorized campaign of extrajudicial killing” would represent a clear violation of the law and said that designating traffickers as terrorists does not grant the president broad authority to kill them at sea.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth escalated the rhetoric further by calling the second military strike a “war crime.”
She leveled the accusation despite admitting she had not seen the classified video or the military’s internal reports.
On CNN, Duckworth said that “Everything that they’ve done has been illegal. It’s illegal under international law, it’s illegal under the Geneva Convention, and it certainly is even illegal under domestic law. It was essentially murder with that double-tap strike,” later adding, “It is a war crime. It’s illegal. However you put it, it’s all illegal.”
Duckworth acknowledged that her conclusions were based entirely on media reporting. She said she had not viewed the footage and had relied solely on publicly available information.
“I’ve not seen the actual video,” she admitted. “I’ve requested to be able to see the actual video. I’ve also actually asked to see the after-action reports from the pilots and the drone operators, as well as the intelligence debrief that all pilots and drone operators conduct after they have completed a mission.”
