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Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, blasted the Trump administration’s airstrikes in the Caribbean, arguing that they resemble powers the president would only have during wartime.
To conduct any of the strikes — and to continue them — Trump should seek congressional approval, Raskin argued.
"Congress has got to assert our institutional prerogative. We have the power to declare war. Not Donald Trump, not JD Vance, not Pete Hegseth, not Tulsi Gabbard," Raskin said, referring to the country's top security officials. "Nobody in the administration has the right to declare war. Only Congress has the right to declare war. And we've got to take that back."
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Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the administration designated several drug cartels operating in the United States — and internationally — as terrorist organizations. In recent months, it has used Navy strikes in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela to eliminate what it has identified as credible terrorist threats in the United States.
The administration has conducted over 20 strikes since November.
That framing has come under fire in recent weeks as questions have emerged about whether striking boats in international waters violates international law. To Raskin, the strikes have encroached on questions of due process.
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"We don't allow the military to act as [a] police officer, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and executioner. And we don't just give massive death penalties by virtue of some imaginary collective punishment or guilt by association. So, we've got to rein the administration in and bring them back to the rule of law in the Constitution," Raskin said.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, have pushed back on Raskin’s criticisms by noting the United States has conducted strikes in other countries in the absence of a declaration of war.
Under the Obama administration, for instance, the United States carried out thousands of strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya — all without a formal war designation. Congress did, however, pass the Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001, allowing the Bush administration to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to combat the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
It fell short of a formal war declaration.
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Raskin did not readily address why analogous strikes in the Middle East didn't compare directly to the strikes off the coast of Venezuela or why the terrorist designation fell outside the norm of what past administrations have done. He said he believed a difference in location wasn't the issue.
"[Arguing] if this were a different event that took place in a different place at a different time, it would be lawful. Well, it's gobbledygook," Raskin said.
The Department of War did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for a response to Raskin's criticism.
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