President Donald Trump backed embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday amid mounting scrutiny of Hegseth’s reported order to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean — a command that led to a second missile strike aimed at two survivors of the initial attack.
“Pete’s doing a great job,” Trump said.
The Sept. 2 strike aimed at two shipwrecked survivors was first reported by the Washington Post and has prompted even congressional Republicans to demand answers as some legal experts, and several congressional Democrats, suggest that the administration may have committed a war crime. During a Monday briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the second strike, but asserted it was legally sound.
On Tuesday, Hegseth said he “watched that first strike live,” but “didn’t stick around” to watch the subsequent ones, adding that he did not “personally see survivors” because the boat was on fire. Even so, he supported the decision and reiterated his support for the commander in charge of the operation: Admiral Frank Bradley “had complete authority” to order the strike, Hegseth said, characterizing it as “the correct decision.”
“As President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations, and we do in this case,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth has generally struck a defiant tone following increased scrutiny over the strikes. He initially called the story “fake news” in a post on his official X account, and later shared a post featuring a doctored cover of the “Franklin the Turtle” children’s book series titled “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.” (On Monday, the series’ Canadian publisher said it “strongly condemn[s] any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts” the values the fictional turtle stands for.)
On Tuesday, Hegseth doubled down on the overall campaign, which has included 21 strikes that have killed 82 suspected drug smugglers, according to a Defense Department spokesperson.
“We’ve only just begun striking Narco boats and putting Narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean, because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said at the Cabinet meeting, contrasting the Trump administration’s response to what he characterized as a “kid gloves” approach to drug trafficking under President Joe Biden.
“We’re stopping the drugs. We’re striking the boats. We’re defeating Narco terrorists,” Hegseth said.
Trump asserted that as a result of the strikes, the rate of drugs entering the U.S. by sea has dropped by more than 90 percent. Asked where that statistic comes from, a spokesperson for the Defense Department referred the question to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The president said that neither he nor Hegseth were aware of the second strike on Sept. 2 aimed at the two survivors. But he defended the bombing campaign and suggested that more attacks will likely be forthcoming.
“Every boat that you see get blown up, we save 25,000 — on average — lives,” Trump claimed. “I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we’ll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea.”
Julianne McShane