One Republican member of the U.S. Senate is publicly criticizing his colleagues' silence on President Donald Trump's unilateral military action. Axios reported Wednesday that Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) is particularly upset with both Trump and Congressional Republicans about the ongoing strikes against alleged drug boats off the coast of South America. Young accused the Trump administration of deliberately keeping lawmakers in the dark about the strikes, and reiterated that the authority to declare war lies with Congress, rather than the president. "If there's been any takeaway from me from the last roughly 25 years of congressional action and inaction — it's not that Congress needs to be more hands-off, that Congress needs to get out of the way," Young said. "I think Congress needs to go further." "Rather than just asserting our ability to authorize military force — which we certainly need to do — we also need to officially bring to close these conflicts and make clear that we have constitutional prerogatives that need to be consistently asserted," he added. Young's remarks came just prior to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing an eighth strike on another vessel in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people. This brings the total death toll to 34 since the first strikes began in September. The Trump administration has only made the bombings public shortly after the fact, and has not announced the names of any alleged targets. One man who was killed, 40 year-old Alejandro Carranza, was fishing off the coast of Colombia, according to his wife, who said he had no ties to drug traffickers. "Why did they just take his life like that?" Carranza's wife, Katerine Hernandez, said Monday. "The fishermen have the right to live. Why didn't they just detain them?" The Indiana Republican is not the first GOP lawmaker to publicly criticize the Trump administration's bombing attacks without consulting Congress. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has called out both Trump and Vice President JD Vance for the boat strikes, and accused Vance in particular of having a "disdain for human life" in regard to his celebration of the bombings. Click here to read Axios' full article.

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