War Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered another strike against a suspected “narco-terrorist” boat on Thursday as he pushes back against “war crime” accusations leveled against him by Democratic lawmakers.
The strike killed four men believed to be transporting drugs to the United States in the Eastern Pacific, according to the U.S. Southern Command, which released an unclassified video of the bombing. The U.S. Southern Command said that “intelligence confirmed” the boat was carrying “illicit narcotics.”
On Dec. 4, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and… pic.twitter.com/pqksvxM3HP
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 4, 2025
Since September, the Trump administration has ordered strikes against at least 23 drug boats, killing 87 suspected drug runners.
Hegseth celebrated the latest strike as Democrats in Congress call for him to face consequences over accusations that he ordered a second missile strike on a suspected drug boat when survivors were in the water. The Washington Post cited anonymous sources in a report last week that claimed Hegseth gave an order to “kill them all” after two men survived the first missile strike.
As Democrats’ criticism of Hegseth continued to mount on Thursday, the War secretary responded to a social media post from Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet, who wrote, “Every new attack aimed at Pete Hegseth makes me want another narco drug boat blown up and sent to the bottom of the ocean.”
“Your wish is our command, Andrew. Just sunk another narco boat,” Hegseth replied.
The claims reported in the Washington Post story were refuted by Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who told lawmakers on Thursday that Hegseth did not issue a “kill them all” after a first strike left two survivors.
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Bradley “was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” said Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton. Lawmakers also watched the video of the second strike, which showed “two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water,” according to Washington Democratic Congressman Adam Smith.
“The order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,” Smith added.
Cotton argued that the second strike was necessary because the survivors were attempting to salvage the drugs.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boatload of drugs down the United States back over so they could stay in the fight, and potentially, given all the context — we heard of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to — recover the cargo and recover those narco-terrorists,” he told reporters after watching video of the follow-up strike.
Hegseth has also faced criticism from some Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who said that the video of the strike showed that the survivors were “distressed, shipwrecked or incapacitated people.” Paul also called on Hegseth to release the video of the strikes for Americans to watch and judge for themselves.
Hegseth said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he “didn’t personally see survivors” after watching a live feed of the strike in question as it was carried out.
“The thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can’t see it,” Hegseth said, adding, “This is called the fog of war.”