Videos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have resurfaced, challenging his previous denials and shining a spotlight on an alleged illegal order connected to a recent military operation.
According to reports, Hegseth gave a “spoken directive” to kill everyone aboard an alleged drug-smuggling boat. After a first strike left two survivors clinging to the wreckage, Admiral Frank Bradley reportedly carried out a follow-on missile strike.
In an interview shortly after the Sept. 2 attack, Hegseth claimed he had watched the entire mission live via drone footage. “I can tell you that was definitely not artificial intelligence,” he told a former colleague on Fox News, according to Newsweek. “I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua, a narco trafficking organization designated by the United States, trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.”
Last week, Hegseth dismissed the Washington Post report on his directive as “fake news” and “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory.” But the White House said Monday that the defense secretary had authorized the strikes, noting that Admiral Bradley “worked well within his authority and the law.”
The resurfaced comments raise serious questions about how involved Hegseth was in the operation. MS NOW’s Morning Joe also aired previous statements from the defense secretary suggesting that conventional rules of engagement should be ignored.
“We’re training warriors, not defenders,” Hegseth told top military leaders in late September. “We fight wars to win, not to defend. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.”
He added, “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense. Maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”
The Trump administration has carried out more than 20 strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 83 people. Legal experts have questioned whether the attacks violated domestic and international law, with some describing Hegseth’s reported order as a potential war crime—or even murder.
News analyst Brian Allen wrote on X, “The White House swore Pete Hegseth knew nothing about the Caribbean strikes. Then a video surfaces of him bragging he watched it happen live. That’s not mixed messaging, that’s a full-blown cover-up caught in 4K.”
Democratic influencer Harry Sisson added, “WOW: The White House been caught in another lie. After claiming Pete Hegseth didn’t know anything about the strikes in the Caribbean, footage has resurfaced of him in September saying he watched it LIVE. Completely exposed.”
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