Trump Holds National Security Meeting on Venezuela as Scrutiny Mounts Over ‘Kill Orders’ in Caribbean Strikes

President Donald Trump convened his top national security team Monday at the White House to discuss “next steps” on Venezuela, amid escalating tensions and legal backlash over the US military’s controversial “double strikes” on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, which have killed over 80 people since September.

The Oval Office session included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and senior White House aides, focusing on the ongoing “Operation Southern Spear” deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and 15,000 troops in the region. No outcomes were disclosed, but sources say it addressed potential land operations against narco-trafficking networks, which Trump last week hinted could begin “very soon.”

The meeting comes as Republican and Democratic leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees announced heightened oversight of the strikes, prompted by reports that Hegseth issued verbal “kill orders” to eliminate all survivors on targeted vessels—a claim he denied Sunday, insisting all actions complied with the law of armed conflict.

A Washington Post-CNN investigation revealed that on September 2, after an initial strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug boat left two survivors, military officials ordered a “follow-on” attack to “ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat eliminated,” per White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt. She characterized it as “self-defense” under Adm. Frank Bradley’s authority.

Former US military lawyers condemned the orders as potential “war crimes or murder,” violating international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings. Hegseth retorted with a Sunday social media post mocking critics via a cartoon of Franklin from Peanuts wielding an RPG.

Trump, aboard Air Force One Sunday, defended Hegseth: “He did not say that, and I believe him 100 percent.” The president also clarified his recent Venezuelan airspace closure warning was not a prelude to airstrikes: “Don’t read anything into it… We consider Venezuela to be not a very friendly country.”

Venezuela’s National Assembly postponed a special session to form a commission investigating the strikes until Tuesday, with President Nicolás Maduro accusing the US of “murder” and seeking to seize oil reserves via force in an OPEC letter. Maduro reemerged publicly Sunday after days of absence, defiantly chanting Venezuela’s “indestructibility.”

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The US has conducted 20+ strikes since September, killing 80+ alleged traffickers without evidence release, drawing human rights scrutiny. Trump’s administration designated Maduro’s Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization last week, with a $50 million bounty on the president.

As the Caribbean build-up alarms regional leaders, the Monday meeting signals potential escalation, testing Trump’s “no foreign wars” pledge amid domestic MAGA pressures and legal challenges.