Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing growing pressure over a Washington Post report that he ordered the military to “kill everybody” in a boat strike in the Caribbean, with Democrats alleging a potential war crime and President Trump saying he wouldn’t have ordered a second strike.
The Post reported Friday that Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” before the first strike against an alleged drug-trafficking boat on Sept. 2. The first strike did not immediately kill all 11 people, whom the administration has called “narco-terrorists,” aboard the vessel, prompting the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation to order another strike to comply with Hegseth’s directive.
The White House confirmed on Monday that Hegseth authorized the second attack and defended the legality of the ongoing strikes, which have killed at least 83 people.
“With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt told reporters, referring to Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, the commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg, N.C.
“Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said.
Hegseth backed up Bradley on Monday evening, proclaiming the U.S. is “fortunate to have such men protecting us.”
“Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional and has my 100 percent support,” Hegseth wrote on social media. “I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.”
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On Sunday, Trump expressed confidence in Hegseth, although he noted that he would not have ordered a second strike.
“But no, I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One. “The first strike was very lethal, it was fine, and if there were two people around. But Pete said that didn’t happen. I have great confidence in him.”
The new details regarding the Sept. 2 strikes, which the Trump administration said killed members of Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang from Venezuela that the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization, prompted bipartisan uproar over the weekend.
Several Democrats and at least one Republican, Rep. Mike Turner (Ohio), a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said the strike was a possible crime. The Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees said they are looking to conduct oversight of the strike.
“Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Turner said on Sunday while on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The Trump administration has asserted that the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” (NIAC) with “designated terrorist organizations,” as backed up by a classified opinion authored by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which argues that because U.S. troops participating in the strikes are taking orders that are in line with the laws of war, they cannot be prosecuted.
“But ‘NIAC’ is a legal term of art which requires certain facts that are not met here,” said Sarah Harrison, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “That means the law of war is not applicable and thus these are not war crimes, but rather murders or extrajudicial killings.”
Harrison, who is a former associate general counsel at the Department of Defense (DOD), argued what is “distinctly disturbing” about the Sept. 2 strikes is that even with the U.S. not being engaged in a war with drug traffickers, the DOD is “operating under the assumption” that it is and is “claiming it is applying the law of war.”
“But every officer and enlisted is trained to know that it is a textbook war crime to execute individuals who are ‘hors de combat’ or ‘out of the fight,’” Harrison told The Hill on Monday. “That no one down the chain of command refused this patently illegal order is shocking and sheds more light on the breakdown of the rule of law within DOD under the leadership of Secretary Hegseth.”
Hegseth has bashed the Post’s article and joked on Sunday about the mounting scrutiny he faces.
But over the weekend, the Pentagon chief spoke to members of Congress who “may have expressed some concerns” over the Sept. 2 operations in the Caribbean, Leavitt said Monday.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine addressed the situation with the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees.
Caine’s discussion with the lawmakers “centered on counter-narcoterrorism operations in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility” and addressed “the intent and legality of missions to disrupt illicit trafficking networks which threaten the security and stability of the Western Hemisphere,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday in a statement, adding that Caine “reiterated his trust and confidence in the experienced commanders at every echelon and his pride in those serving in the Joint Force.”
Since their start in early September, the Trump administration’s boat strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have prompted concerns from Democrats and some Republicans about the legal rationale for the attacks and the way the military is identifying targets in speed boats.
Some of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have defended the administration’s conduct during the Sept. 2 operations, arguing the military is relying on sound legal justification.
“Foreign terrorist organizations have been legitimate targets of kinetic strikes for decades, across administrations of both parties,” Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), a former Navy SEAL officer who sits on the Senate Armed Services panel, said Monday on the social platform X. “The strikes in question are consistent with both the law of armed conflict and with the precedent set by our systematic targeting of terrorist operatives across the globe.”
Harrison, of the International Crisis Group, argued that all of the Trump administration’s boat strikes since early September “implicate murder statutes and violate the prohibition on extrajudicial killings under international law.”
“Because of that, every time U.S. service members execute more alleged traffickers, who are civilians and innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, they put themselves at risk of criminal liability at home and abroad,” she said Monday. “That risk extends indefinitely given the crime of murder typically does not have a statute of limitations.”
The backlash over the boat strikes comes as the Trump administration has established a massive military presence in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, in the vicinity of Venezuela, deploying more than a dozen warships, F-35 fighter jets, Marines and spy planes. Meanwhile, Trump and other U.S. officials have ramped up the pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom they have deemed an “illegitimate leader.”
Trump was expected to meet with his national security team, including Hegseth, Caine and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who also serves as national security adviser — in the Oval Office on Monday to discuss the situation in Venezuela and other matters, Leavitt confirmed on Monday.
When asked if the commander in chief is considering putting U.S. troops on the ground in Venezuela, the press secretary said there are “many options” at Trump’s disposal that he is considering.
The president confirmed Sunday that he recently spoke with Maduro, but declined to elaborate on how the conversation went.
“I wouldn’t say it went well or badly, it was a phone call,” he said.
