Fact check: Trump’s absurd claim that he saved 100,000 lives by attacking alleged Venezuelan drug boats

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/08/politics/venezuela-drug-boats-trump

The total number of US overdose deaths from all drugs in 2024 was about 82,000, according to provisional federal data. (Even adding in reported Canadian opioid and stimulant deaths doesn’t bring the total to 100,000.) Trump is essentially claiming, in other words, that his decision to attack a small number of boats in the Caribbean – there have been at least four US strikes since the beginning of September – prevented more than a full year’s worth of deaths.

There are other issues with Trump’s claims. The White House and Defense Department have not presented proof that the boats were carrying either drugs in general or the “fentanyl, mostly” Trump claimed last week they were carrying, nor that the people on the boats were planning to try to get such drugs into the US. The Caribbean is not known to be a significant fentanyl-smuggling route, and Venezuela is not considered a significant source of the illicit fentanyl trafficked into the US. That fentanyl is primarily manufactured in Mexico and smuggled across the US border in vehicles – generally by US citizens.