While the deadly strike carried out by the U.S. Navy on a Venezuelan cartel boat was decried by critics as either a deepfake or an overreach, a lack of due process bothered none of the panelists on Fox News’ “The Five” on Wednesday night, who celebrated the maneuver as a “message” to drug gangs and smugglers.
Carried out by the U.S. Navy, the precision attack killed 11 people aboard the speedboat in international waters. Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said separately that “there’s more where that came from.”
“Eleven Tren de Aragua narco terrorists got a one-way ticket to narco heaven,” Jesse Watters said as the widely circulated drone video of the fiery airstrike played. “That drugged-out dinghy was a floating weapon of mass destruction, packed with enough poison to kill countless Americans. And the president says the traffickers will be thinking twice before they smuggle again.”
Co-panelist Greg Gutfeld said the strike was meant to stop a lot more than one boatload of illegal drugs.
“This is what you call a message,” Gutfeld said. “It is well-publicized. It is very clear. There is a certain outcome. If you’re a smuggler, you are starting to rethink the decision to avoid career day at high school – maybe selling trinkets off the beach isn’t a bad idea. Maybe I should call my uncle and see if they’re still an opening at the bodega, who knows?”
Watters called it “an escalation in the war on drugs. I could see this expanding,” before throwing the commentary to Dana Perino.
“Beyond drugs it is a war on terror, right?,” Perino said. “One of the first things President Trump did when he came back to office was to designate them as terrorist organizations. First, even during the campaign, remember, he talked about the Mexican drug cartels and this was a question: Would you actually take military action against them?”
And now, he has demonstrated that he just might.
“What a change from the past,” Gutfeld said. “We are no longer as a country embracing decline. In one video you just saw the solution for drugs, gangs, and late-night boating. Trump just said to America, I hear you. Watch this. The sharks are happy. They just got a big free meal.”
Watch the entire panel discussion in the video above.
