President Donald Trump on Sunday night addressed the growing controversy over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and an alleged order for a second strike on a Venezuelan boat to ensure no one survived.
“He said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision,” Trump told reporters, when asked whether he condoned the alleged follow-up attack. Pressed again on whether such a second strike would be legal, he added: “I wouldn’t have wanted that — a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.”
Why It Matters
Hegseth has insisted that the U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean were “lawful,” responding after The Washington Post reported that he instructed military officials to leave “no survivors” during a September operation targeting an alleged drug vessel.
In a post on X, Hegseth argued that current operations are “lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Sean Parnell also defended the mission on X, saying he had already told The Washington Post that “this entire narrative was false yesterday. These people just fabricate anonymously sourced stories out of whole cloth. Fake News is the enemy of the people.”
What To Know
Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington, D.C., from Florida, where he spent the Thanksgiving weekend and held talks with Ukrainian officials while the U.S. continues efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Reporters, however, zeroed in on the unfolding domestic controversy: the report that Hegseth ordered “no survivors” in strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
Trump said he didn’t “know anything about it,” but emphasized that Hegseth had personally assured him “he did not say that.”
“Pete said he did not order the death of those men,” Trump said when asked again about a second strike on the vessel. He sidestepped a direct answer on whether he would have approved such a strike had it been ordered.
Trump added that he would “look into it,” but nonetheless backed the operations overall, saying he had “great confidence” in Hegseth and claiming drug deliveries by sea have become “infinitesimal” compared with past levels. He also argued that drugs were visible on the boats before the strikes, framing their destruction as justified.
The president further downplayed concerns stemming from his message that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” a statement that had raised fears of escalated U.S. military action against the South American nation.
“We consider Venezuela to be not a very friendly country,” Trump said, citing mass migration from Venezuela to the U.S. and accusing many migrants of being criminals and gang members who have proliferated within the country.
Asked whether an airstrike on Venezuela itself was imminent, Trump rejected that interpretation, saying, “Don’t read anything into it.”
What People Are Saying
Trump, in a message posted across social media last week:
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”
Senator Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat, wrote on X:
“The time to stop the Trump administration from dragging us into war with Venezuela is not after the bombs start falling. It’s right now. If Congress doesn’t do its job, we accept the role Trump is relegating us to: Constitutional afterthought.”
Hegseth, in a post on X last week, in part:
“As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland. As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’ The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
