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I'm Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 15 minutes.

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The U.S. has now sunk boats off the Venezuelan coast four confirmed times. Plus, the Trump administration's latest plan to increase immigration judges.

We’ll see you on October 24.

We usually only get to communicate with our readers behind screens, so we especially love it when we get to meet the Tangle community in person. Later this month, we have one of the biggest opportunities yet: We’re coming to the Barclay theater in Irvine, California, for a lively discussion on the future of gerrymandering, immigration, and who we think will run for president in 2028. Isaac and Kmele will share the stage with Ana Kasparian and Alex Thompson, with an audience Q&A and a team meet-and-greet after the show. Get your tickets here.

Quick hits.

1. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, answering questions about investigations into President Trump’s political adversaries and her handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi also defended the Trump administration’s recent deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities. (The testimony)
2. The White House has reportedly prepared a memo that says furloughed federal workers aren’t guaranteed compensation for the time they are forced not to work during the ongoing government shutdown, potentially denying back pay to as many as 750,000 federal workers. (The report)
3. Several U.S. airports experienced flight delays and cancellations due to staffing shortages linked to the government shutdown. Airports in Nashville, Dallas, and Chicago were among the locations operating with significantly limited staffing on Tuesday. (The delays)
4. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging Colorado’s ban on treatments for minors intended to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, also known as “conversion therapy.” Some justices appeared swayed by the plaintiff’s argument that the law discriminates against her religious views, while others seemed open to sending the case back to a lower court. (The arguments)
5. The European Union proposed a 50% tariff on steel imports — and a reduction in its quota on tariff-free steel imports — in response to global oversupply of the material and the United States’s similar tariffs. (The proposal)

Today’s topic.

The Venezuelan boat strikes. On Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the United States had struck a small boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, killing four people. Hegseth alleged that the boat was operated by the drug cartel Tren de Aragua and was trafficking narcotics to the United States. The strike is the fourth confirmed time the Trump administration has sunk a small craft it alleges was controlled by “narco-terrorists,” including a strike on September 2 that killed 11 and two others on September 15 and September 19.

Much of the military’s allegations — including the location of the strikes, the identities of those on board, and the destination of the boats — have not been confirmed, and the total number of strikes may be as high as six. Furthermore, drugs have only been confirmed to be retrieved from the September 19 strike; the Dominican Republic announced it had recovered over 2,000 pounds of cocaine from the wreckage.

Back up: Early in his presidency, President Donald Trump designated Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups. The United States deployed several warships to the waters near Venezuela to counter maritime narcotics trafficking in August; simultaneously, the U.S. State Department increased its reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to $50 million, alleging that he led a drug-trafficking organization. In a notice to Congress last week, the Trump administration stated that the United States was in “a non-international armed conflict” with cartels operating out of Venezuela that it classified as terrorists.

According to recent reporting from The Guardian, the military operations have been orchestrated by the Homeland Security Council, which White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller leads. “[The Maduro administration] is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela,” Miller said in an interview in September. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also criticized the Maduro administration, saying the administration would not tolerate a cartel “masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere.”

On Thursday, the administration called off diplomatic outreach to Venezuela, citing Maduro’s reluctance to step down. Recent reporting suggests that the United States could be preparing to launch an attack within the South American nation’s borders.

The Maduro administration accuses the United States of lying about the strikes, alleging that the United States is seeking to control Venezuela’s oil reserves. President Maduro has accused Trump of instigating a war and denies that the people killed by the U.S. strikes were drug traffickers.

Many legal experts have called the strikes extrajudicial killings, saying that the use of lethal force was illegal. The White House says that the use of force against an international terrorist organization is justified under the powers granted to the president under Article II of the Constitution.

Today, we’ll cover what the right and left are saying about the strikes. Then, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed on the ongoing strikes, with some arguing that Trump is taking necessary action to confront an immediate threat.
• Some question the legal basis of the strikes.
• Others say Trump’s approach risks worsening the problem he wants to solve.

In PJ Media, Sarah Anderson explored why “the U.S. can’t afford to ignore Venezuela anymore.”

“Nicolás Maduro and his illegitimate, narco-terrorist Venezuelan government must fall — not just for the sake of the majority of law-abiding Venezuelans who deserve to have the government they voted for in the summer of 2024, but for every single one of us in the United States as well,” Anderson wrote. “Maduro isn’t just some random dictator. Venezuela isn’t just a failed country. It serves as a launchpad for cartels and narco-terrorists poisoning and destabilizing American communities, and it’s a safe haven for terrorist groups like Hezbollah. The Maduro regime itself is a cartel.”

“Venezuela faces one of the largest displacement crises in the world. Between 2014 and 2024, 7.7 million Venezuelans fled their home country… While many of those people coming from Venezuela just wanted to get away from Maduro and find a new life, some of them had darker motives,” Anderson said. “Human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism — you name it. That’s how the TdA thugs get here. That’s how terrorists from other parts of the world, like Hezbollah, who wish every American dead, get here. Venezuela is their starting point.”

In The Washington Post, John Yoo said Trump’s boat strikes “risk crossing the line between law enforcement and war.”

“The Trump administration is right that illicit drugs are inflicting more harm on the U.S. than most armed conflicts have. More than 800,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses since 1999… But the U.S. cannot wage war against any source of harm to Americans. Americans have died in car wrecks at an annual rate of about 40,000 in recent years; the nation does not wage war on auto companies,” Yoo wrote. “Our military and intelligence agents seek to prevent foreign attacks that might happen in the future, not to punish past conduct. To perform that anticipatory and protective function, we accept that our military and intelligence forces must act on probabilities, not certainties, to prevent threats that might never be realized.”

“The use of military force against the cartels may plunge the U.S. into a war against Venezuela. But a conflict focused against the Maduro regime is not a broad, amorphous military campaign against the illegal drug trade, which would violate American law and the Constitution,” Yoo said. “The White House has yet to provide compelling evidence in court or to Congress that drug cartels have become arms of the Venezuelan government. That showing is needed to justify not only the deportations (which were just overturned by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit) but also the naval attacks in the South American seas.”

In The Washington Examiner, Daniel DePetris criticized “Trump’s unconstitutional forever war against the cartels.”

“To say there is a litany of problems with this militarized approach would be an understatement. Taking the fight to drug cartels has been done in the past, including in Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, all driven by the assumption that military pressure will, over time, result in drug trafficking organizations fracturing into irrelevance. But it hasn’t turned out that way,” DePetris wrote. “Mexico’s murder rate is slowly going down, but the numbers remain staggeringly high compared to what they were at the beginning of the century. Colombia used to be a success story, but it is now viewed as a failure; coca cultivation increased by more than 50% between 2022 and 2023.”

“Trump can’t order somebody’s death simply by calling them a terrorist. Drug traffickers may be the scum of the earth, but they aren’t terrorists using violence to achieve a political objective. To mix the two together, as the Trump administration is doing, has dangerous practical implications,” DePetris said. “Let’s remember: Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua is not the only Latin American criminal group labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. The list now includes Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif in Haiti, Los Choneros and Los Lobos in Ecuador, and a litany of cartels in Mexico. By Trump’s logic, the U.S. is now free to bomb any and all of these groups at whim.”

What the left is saying.

• The left continues to oppose the strikes, suggesting Trump is acting lawlessly.
• Some argue the strikes have no legal justification.
• Others criticize the media’s coverage of the military actions.

In The New York Times, W.J. Hennigan wrote “if we’re at war, Americans deserve to know more about it.”

“The Trump administration told Congress this week that the United States is engaged in an ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels. The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals,” Hennigan said. “We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop. We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on. Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny.”

“So what’s the ultimate goal? The Pentagon has amassed a wide range of firepower in the region that indicates that its ambitions extend beyond destroying drug boats: F-35 stealth fighter jets, a Marine expeditionary unit and a flotilla of warships. Perhaps, as experts have speculated, the strikes are merely the opening salvo to push Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, from power,” Hennigan wrote. “The current deployment of U.S. forces, while sizable, still isn’t enough for a full-scale invasion. But we should know and hear more about the underpinning rationale for positioning them there.”

In Just Security, Marty Lederman described the “legal flaws” in Trump’s actions.

“The Trump administration’s ‘armed conflict’ justification… is groundless. No one — in the public, in Congress or, most importantly, in the military itself — should treat it as a plausible legal basis that might justify lethal strikes on the alleged drug vessels and the civilians on those boats,” Lederman said. “It is necessary (at a minimum) (i) that the non-State entity is an ‘organized armed group’ with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status because they’re subject to commanders’ direction and control and (ii) that the organized armed group has engaged in armed violence against the State that is of some intensity (think of al Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and that has been protracted.”

“The Trump administration hasn’t made any effort — not publicly, anyway — to demonstrate that any of the drug cartels in question are ‘organized’ armed groups with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status. But even if it could do so, those cartels haven’t engaged in any protracted or intense armed violence against the United States,” Lederman wrote. “When the President uses the term ‘armed attack’ he is referring not to any actual armed attack as any States or international tribunals understand that term, but instead to the ‘flow of illicit narcotics into the United States’... The distribution of dangerous narcotics, however, isn’t an armed attack or armed violence in the sense used in international law.”

In Common Dreams, Joseph Bouchard asked “why hasn’t the mainstream media pressed the administration on these strikes being illegal and dangerous?”

“Within hours of these strikes breaking, major outlets were repeating the Trump administration’s line that this was a strike on a ‘drug boat.’ According to this framing, the attacks were justified, necessary, and part of a broader war on drug trafficking. Virtually none of these outlets even entertained the obvious legal and ethical questions. Instead, they served as stenographers for the administration,” Bouchard said. “This is reminiscent of the Iraq War era, when corporate media parroted the Bush administration’s ludicrous arguments, paving the way for invasion and occupation that would kill at least 200,000, maim millions, and destroy American democracy further.”

“Due process was ignored. There was no trial, no arrest, no attempt at interdiction — just summary execution. And the strikes occurred in Venezuelan territorial waters, not in an international conflict zone. If another country did this, say Russia bombing a fishing boat in the Baltic, or China attacking smugglers near Taiwan, the Western media would have declared it a war crime the same day,” Bouchard wrote. “Add this to the list of Western double standards in the international arena — we are seeing the destruction of the ‘liberal order’ in real time.”

My take.

Today’s “My Take” was written by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• The relative normalization of these strikes feels crazy to me.
• We don’t know anything about who or what was on the boats, but we know extrajudicial killings don’t resolve instability (and they’re probably illegal).
• A direct attack on Venezuela seems increasingly possible, but I don’t think Trump will cross that bridge.

I’m sorry, but are we going to war with Venezuela?

I know there’s been a lot going on lately — bouts of political violence, ceasefire negotiations in Gaza, National Guard deployments, a Congressional hearing with the attorney general, a new Supreme Court term, the government shutdown — but a new, extraordinary use of military force to kill alleged drug traffickers outside of U.S. borders should probably be headline news everywhere. And the fact that it’s not — that the headlines have taken such a blasé tone of, “Oh, by the way, the U.S. sank another Venezuelan boat” — is making me feel a little crazy.

A month ago, on ourSuspension of the Rules podcast, I too channeled this attitude of nonplussed acceptance. I argued that, based on Trump’s pattern of behavior, the administration would present a dramatic show of force and deliver explosive rhetoric before claiming some kind of victory and moving on.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and we’ve seen this show before: Mexico and Canada were both targets of emergency orders due to what Trump described as “the flood of illegal aliens and drugs… pouring across our Borders” — then they reached a deal, Trump declared victory, and we moved on. Iran was also the target of a military strike — then they reached a deal, Trump declared victory, and we moved on. Those situations are far from resolved, but Trump — and the media, and the rest of us — have moved on all the same. Why would this be any different? I expected some more bluster, maybe a few more boats to be sunk, then the U.S. and Venezuela would reach some kind of deal (probably involving trade, likely favorable petroleum costs) Trump would declare victory, and we would move on.

Then, as much as I loathe to credit him in pieces with my byline, Isaac said something that stopped me in my tracks: We’re talking about how Trump will “probably sink a couple more boats,” but it’s really him ordering the killing of additional handfuls of people without any attempt at interdiction, trial, or conviction for drug smuggling. This is an insane normalization of what should be a major, stop-you-in-your-tracks, likely illegal use of military force.

After the first strike in early September, we criticized the lack of evidence for the government’s claims, questioned the legality of the attack, and called the military operation that killed 11 to be Trump’s most lethal use of executive authority yet. Now, the United States has struck at least three more boats off the coast of Venezuela, and we don’t know who was on the boats, what they were carrying, where they were headed, if they were in international waters at the time, or even how many the U.S. has struck.

How is this not a bigger deal?

But let’s be clear: Venezuela has certainly been inviting some kind of intervention from the U.S. over the last few years. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have said Maduro’s election was illegitimate. As president, he has overseen hyperinflation and allowed street crime and international drug trafficking to flourish. This has impacted the United States, where the influx of Venezuelan migrants has contributed to the overwhelming of our immigration system and Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members have been credibly accused of everything from drug dealing to human trafficking to murder. The instability of the Venezuelan government and the inability of the Maduro administration to control an international criminal organization justifies a U.S. response.

We have other tools at our disposal, and we should use them: sanctions, decertification campaigns, joint-task forces with local governments, even trade deals. Or we could just capture these boats and question those on board, which has been the standard approach to suspected drug runners… and is something we’re already doing in the Pacific. The actions of TdA gang members simply do not justify the United States engaging in extrajudicial killings.

A lot of people with far more experience on international affairs than I have all said it better than I could:

“Our procedures and practices for identifying lawful targets are extremely robust…In my experience, the principles of distinction and proportionality that the United States applies are not just recited at meetings. They are implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law,” wrote political scientist Micah Zenko.

“It is vital that the legal basis (and to the extent possible, factual basis) for our targeted killing policy be publicly debated so that Congress and the American people can decide in an informed way if they approve or if they wanted a deeper congressional role,” wrote former Bush legal counsel Jack Goldsmith.

“If a person is driving a truck in the desert of Yemen, he’s not actively engaged in any warfare against the United States of America. It is absolutely criminal for the president to kill that person… The authority simply doesn’t exist, and it’s denied expressly by the Constitution,” Judge Andrew Napolitano.

By the way, none of those quotes were about Trump’s strikes on these alleged drug boats — they were all about President Barack Obama’s drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. And our deadly interventions in those three countries also serve as a reminder that extrajudicial killings typically fail to resolve the unrest and tensions that create international strife: Pakistan is still home to burgeoning and powerful terrorist groups, the State Department has elevated Somalia to its highest level of risk for American travellers, and we all know about the Houthis in Yemen.

As for what happens next, I truly don’t know; but the situation looks extremely precarious. My prediction that Trump would “strike a few more boats” has come true, but the Trump two-step of a quick deal and a big headline doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. Reliable reporting has indicated that high-ranking members of the administration are considering strikes within Venezuela itself or even military action against Maduro’s government. The naval operations in the Caribbean haven’t been sudden or covert — they’ve been intentionally provocative and carried out for months now. And the administration’s stance on Maduro has been steadily getting more and more aggressive. In other words, it’s very possible that we haven’t seen the final escalation with Venezuela.

Despite all this, I still don’t think this president is ever going to authorize a prolonged use of military force, let alone stand in front of Congress and ask it to officially declare war. Even if Rubio, Hegseth, Miller, and teams of people behind the scenes are edging us towards putting boots on the ground in a petrostate (a regrettable American passtime), Trump has shown time and again that he will make the final call. He seems to care a lot about his image as a peacemaker, and despite some hardlining and isolated military actions, he has been consistent about not bringing the U.S. into prolonged military engagements.

I don’t feel highly confident in this read, but if I had to make a call, I’d say that Trump is probably going to keep being the person he’s always been and find an off-ramp. It worries me that I can’t see what that off-ramp could look like, but I think his attachment to his image, and pressure from the MAGA base, will motivate him to find one.

Take the survey: Do you think the U.S. will go to war with Venezuela? Let us know.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: I was wondering what you all thought of the Pentagon reassigning 600 military lawyers to be temporary immigration judges? Isaac has mentioned one of the solutions to our immigration mess is more immigration judges, so is this the right move?

— Cameron from Milwaukee, WI

Tangle: In late August, the Trump administration approved a plan to send up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges in the Justice Department. The first group of these temporary judges started training on Monday, and about half of them will begin a six-month term as soon as their training ends.

If the Trump administration successfully adds 600 new judges, it will roughly double the current number of working judges, even after 139 left their positions, were fired, or involuntarily transferred.

On its face, doubling the number of working judges seems like a step in the right direction, especially when over 3.4 million immigration cases are currently pending after doubling over the last four years. Frankly, the number of judges probably couldn’t increase quickly enough to deal with all of these cases in a timely manner without a program like this, even if more experienced judges had not been forced out of their positions.

Of course, these lawyers’ experience — or lack thereof — provides a point of contention. The Army and National Guard asked for candidates with experience in “administrative law, immigration law, service as a military judge” or related fields, and at least some are likely to have enough experience elsewhere to qualify them to enter the position; but other applicants may not have much or any experience in these fields.

At the same time, asking 600 military lawyers to fill these roles — in a temporary capacity, on a condensed timeline, and after firing over 100 judges — doesn’t seem like a robust, long-term solution. And it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that some of the inexperienced judges won’t be able to adjudicate the enormous backlog of cases fairly.

On net, it’s a semi-desperate solution to a very desperate problem, but any effort to clear this backlog is good for our system as a whole.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

Gold futures have risen 50% this year, and on Tuesday, they surpassed $4,000 per ounce for the first time. The surge has coincided with a 10% drop in the U.S. dollar index and investor uncertainty over President Trump’s global tariff and trade policies. Central banks and retail investors, in particular, have been buying more gold this year, and the price recently spiked after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in September. However, on Monday, Bank of America advised investors that gold could face “uptrend exhaustion,” with the potential for a “considerable correction” in the final months of 2025. CNBC has the story.

Numbers.

• $336.2 million.The approximate amount of funding for “democracy, development, and health assistance” for Venezuela provided by the United States between fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2024.
• 17.The reported total number of people killed in the three U.S. strikes on alleged drug vessels in September.
• 4. The reported number of people killed in the U.S. strike on an alleged drug vessel on Friday.
• 4,000. The approximate number of sailors and Marines on three amphibious assault ships deployed to Caribbean waters.
• 57%. The odds of a military engagement between the United States and Venezuela by the end of 2025, according to the betting website Polymarket, as of 11:45am ET.
• 30%. The odds of a military engagement between the United States and Venezuela by the end of October, as of 11:45am ET.
• 36% and 38%. The percentage of U.S. adults who approve and disapprove, respectively, of the U.S. sending Navy ships to the sea around Venezuela, according to a September 2025 YouGov poll.
• 16% and 62%. The percentage of U.S. adults who approve and disapprove, respectively, of the U.S. using military force to invade Venezuela.

The extras.

• One year ago today we covered Jack Smith’s latest filing.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the vaccine panel’s latest recommendations on the Covid-19 vaccine.
• Nothing to do with politics: 90s kids rejoice: McDonald’s is bringing back its Monopoly game.
• Yesterday’s survey: 4,102 readers responded to our survey on the Jay Jones texts with 82% saying Jones should drop out. “I agree, this kind of language is NEVER acceptable,” one respondent said. “The left should just do what the right does and say ‘no, let the voters decide,’” said another. “I would predict that the poll result will be 40% or less = Yes; 30% or less = No; and 30% or more will be unsure,” another respondent added.

Have a nice day.

One day while working as a shopping cart collector in Toowoomba, Australia, Scott Shaw found a large, strange book that looked like a Bible. Unsure what to make of it, Shaw decided to leave it inside a friend’s car as a practical joke. When his friend’s wife saw the book, she thought it might be important — and soon discovered that the book was a stolen, handwritten ledger of locals who had served in World War II. Now, the ledger — still in good condition — has been safely returned to the church that kept it. ABC Southern Queensland has the story.