During President Obama’s Google Hangout yesterday, he was asked a tough question about whether or not he had the authority to authorize a drone strike against an American citizen.

Obama reassured Americans that “there has never been a drone used on an American citizen, on American soil” adding that there were a “whole bunch of safeguards” on his administration’s counter-terrorism operations.

“The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States,” Obama explained. “In part because our capacity to capture a terrorist inside the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.”

The president added that he was trying to work with Congress to provide the public with a legal understanding of his drone program.