Live updates: Tennessee holds special election for House seat; Trump holds Cabinet meeting
During the Cabinet meeting, Trump and Hegseth remarked on a double strike on an alleged drug boat from Venezuela in September that killed the initial survivors, with the defense secretary saying he did not see the survivors and criticizing the media’s coverage.
When pressed on whether he saw any survivors after the first strike, Hegseth said, “I did not personally see survivors.”
“The thing was on fire,” with billowing smoke, he said, adding moments later, “This is called the fog of war.”
“This is what you and the press don’t understand,” Hegseth continued. “You sit in your air-conditioned offices up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in The Washington Post.”
The defense secretary added, “Everybody phrases anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in any truth at all. And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.”
Trump did not answer the question about the strikes directly, saying only that his administration’s actions against alleged drug boats have saved lives.
“To me, it was an attack,” Trump said. “It wasn’t one strike, two strikes, three strikes. Somebody asked me a question about the second strike. I didn’t know about the second strike.”
Yesterday, the White House confirmed the second strike on the boat in September. That follow-up strike killed survivors of the initial attack, and lawmakers opened inquiries into the situation.
Earlier in his remarks, Hegseth said that for the “first couple of strikes — as you would, as any leader would want — you want to own that responsibility.”
“So I said, I’m going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information, and make sure it’s the right strike,” Hegseth said. “That was Sept. 2.”
He added that while he watched the first strike live, he “didn’t stick around for the hour, two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs,” noting that he moved to his next meeting.
A few hours later, he learned that a commander decided to “sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said, adding that this was the “correct decision.”
