Marco Rubio
Role at the time: Secretary of State, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Statement summary
Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not" and that targeting is "informed and infused by intelligence collection". He said the military has "walked away" from some strikes.
“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.”
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)Why we used 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.