The White House this week doubled down, defending a controversial second strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel as lawful self-defense — and conservatives should applaud an administration that refuses to let narco-terrorists treat U.S. shores like a slaughterhouse. The left and their media allies are shrieking about legalities, but the hard truth is America cannot cower while cartels and state-backed traffickers flood our country with poison.
Reporters eager for a scandal are fixated on graphic details from September’s mission, but the broader picture is what matters: dozens of strikes have been carried out against drug-running craft, and the Biden-era habits of appeasement produced the chaos that now demands forceful correction. Legal scholars will debate fine points while citizens watch fentanyl deaths climb; it’s cold comfort to tell grieving families that we were too timid to stop the killers at sea.
President Trump and his national security team are rightly preparing options to confront Nicolás Maduro and the narco-state apparatus that shields the Cartel de los Soles, including covert and overt tools of statecraft when diplomacy fails. For years Democrats and globalist elites turned a blind eye to regime-enabled trafficking — now the people’s government is finally treating the cartel threat the way it should be treated: as a national-security emergency.
Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel has had to swat down another anonymous-source hit piece from outlets that traffic in leaks rather than facts, and President Trump has publicly backed him as he cleans house and restores law-and-order priorities inside the bureau. The swamp has always relied on unnamed sources to kneecap reformers; Patel’s pushback is exactly what the Republic needs — firm leadership and accountability at the nation’s premier law-enforcement agency.
In New York, accused killer Luigi Mangione returned to court as his defense team tried to throw out key evidence — the backpack with alleged weapons and journals and statements made before police read Miranda — in the horrific assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson. This is a moment to be relentless: prosecutors should be allowed to present the full record so jurors can see the warped ideology at the heart of this crime, and the media should stop humanizing accused political murderers.
Americans who believe in safety, sovereignty, and the rule of law must stand with leaders who act, not with pundits who prefer optics over outcomes. Congress should back lawful, decisive steps against narco-terrorism, defend lawful commanders and investigators from character assassination, and let the courts hold violent radicals like Mangione fully accountable. Our families and communities deserve a government that protects them — not lectures from the same elites who created the crisis.
