GOP Sen. Rand Paul Questions U.S. Attack On Venezuelan Vessel: 'Are We The World's Policemen?'

Republican Sen. Rand Paul questioned the U.S. attack on a Venezuelan vessel on Tuesday, noting that the criteria to take such actions could become hard to define.

"You might ask the question, where does it end? Are we the world's policemen? Are we going to be blowing people up off the coast all around the world?" Paul said during an interview with Newsmax.

"Is it really the constitutional duty of our government?" he added.

Paul's question appears to be directly aimed at Donald Trump, considering that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that it was the president who personally gave the order to blow up the vessel, rather than have troops interdict it.

"Instead of interdicting it, on the president's orders, we blew it up," Rubio said during a press conference in Mexico.

"And it will happen again," Rubio added. Before heading to the neighboring country, Rubio had already anticipated that the Trump administration will l "go on the offense" against cartels.

Trump is "going to use the full power of America and the full might of the us to take on and eradicate these drug cartels no matter where they're operating from and no matter how long they've been able to act with impunity," Rubio said.

The administration's top officials, including the president, have been touting the attack and warning more are set to follow. Asked about it at the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump was asked why the boat in question and the 11 people on it were killed instead of taken into custody.

"On the boat you have massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them speaking about it. There are massive amounts of drug coming into our country to kill a lot of people. You see bags of drugs all over the boat. A lot of other people won't be doing it again after seeing that video," Trump said.

"We have to protect our country and we're going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor. They've been sending millions of people into the country. Many of them are Tren de Aragua, some of the worst people anywhere in the world," he added.