Rubio says every strike gets legal review and targeting is informed by intelligence
Secretary of State, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
“So every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not. And this is done by the Department of War the way it's been done in other theaters around the world. … all of it informed and infused by intelligence collection. In essence, they have to have true links. I can tell you they do walk away from strikes. … there have been strikes that they've walked away from because it doesn't meet the criteria or because there's doubts.”
Source and context
Original video
About this source
PBS NewsHour clip of the June 2, 2026 Senate Foreign Relations Committee exchange about the criteria for targeting alleged drug boats. The quotations in this record are taken from the audio.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Reporting
About this source
PolitiFact fact-check republished by WLRN. It dates Rubio's testimony to June 2 and quotes his answer to Sen. Kaine about targeting criteria.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
At a June 2, 2026 hearing, before the September 19 strike, Sen. Tim Kaine asked Rubio what the targeting criteria are. After saying he could not describe the classified criteria, Kaine asked why the administration would not include the presence of narcotics aboard a boat as a targeting criterion.
After the quotation
Kaine said the presence of narcotics aboard a boat has never been a targeting criterion in the briefings he has received, and that he was not saying the strikes he reviewed failed to meet the criteria.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Was the U.S. military's September 19 Caribbean boat strike justified by evidence of narcotics trafficking?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Measured against the campaign the September 19 strike belongs to and the intelligence basis given for such strikes, Rubio defends the process behind target selection, citing legal review of every strike and intelligence-based criteria.
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Was the U.S. military's September 19 Caribbean boat strike justified by evidence of narcotics trafficking?
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