Hegseth Avoids Committing to Release Second Strike Video...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth avoided answering directly as to whether he would release video of a controversial second strike on an alleged drug boat, even as lawmakers urge its release. “We’re reviewing it right now to make sure sources, methods – I mean it’s an ongoing operation … We’ve got operators out there doing this right now, so whatever we were to decide to release we’d have to be very responsible about,” Hegseth said during an interview at the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi, California, adding again, “We’re reviewing that right now.” Hegseth’s more cagey response is in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s statement last week that “whatever they have, we’d certainly release no problem Newsweek reached out to the White House by email outside of normal business hours on Saturday night for comment. Why It Matters The Trump administration has come under severe scrutiny after reports of a second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that killed two survivors, raising concerns that the administration had committed a war crime in doing so. The Washington Post also reported that Hegseth had ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” on the boat – something that he has strongly and repeatedly denied, criticizing the Post for its sourcing and reporting on the matter. Hegseth has insisted that the operations are lawful strikes, which are intended to be “lethal, kinetic” strikes to destroy “narco-boats” and kill “narco-terrorists.” The administration maintains that every person killed in the strikes so far is tied to a designated terrorist organization. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gives a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum on December 6, 2025, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. (Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images) What To Know Lawmakers and defense experts alike gathered in Simi for the Reagan National Defense Forum, but the highlight of the weekend was a keynote speech from Hegseth, followed by an interview conducted by Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson. Hegseth spoke on Trump’s use of the doctrine that America leads by “peace through strength,” pointing to the several peace deals the president helped negotiate since returning to office earlier this year. Tomlinson therefore asked about the Venezuela drug boat strikes, which Trump has repeatedly framed as a cornerstone of his administration’s drug-fighting policy. “We can’t I can’t get into sources and methods and all of those things for obvious reasons, but you have to develop the intel picture and get an understanding of what you’re looking at … so once we got to the point where a strike was eminent, I had taken the decision responsibility up to my level,” Hegseth said. “Not many military decisions should be made by the Secretary of War: I believe in in deferring those decisions to local commanders as much as possible, but because of the strategic implications of the first few strikes, I wanted to hold that decision at my level, and the briefing that I received before that strike was extensive, exhaustive,” Hegseth added. When asked when the Pentagon would release video, citing Trump’s comment that he would have no problem with releasing it, however, Hegseth did not commit to doing so, citing concerns about compromising “sources, methods” with a release. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is interviewed by Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson at the Reagan National Defense Forum on December 6, 2025 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. (Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images) Tomlinson then asked Hegseth directly about the “kill everybody” order reports, Hegseth turned to the crowd and asked, “Is anybody here from the Washington Post?” and quickly added, “I don’t know where you get your sources, but they suck.” “Of course not,” Hegseth said. “Anybody that’s been in the situation room there’s or they’ve been in in in the the the war room there, Secretary’s office, no, you don’t walk in and say, kill them. It’s it’s just patently ridiculous.” “It’s meant to create a cartoon of me and the decisions that we make and how we make them. Just ridiculous,” he added, stressing that the operation followed “a very defined process, specific criteria” that involved “lawyers, intel analysts, everything.” Hegseth highlighted another strike in which two people survived a strike on a submserible vessel and were stranded in the water, but in that case the U.S. forces “gave them back to their host countries.”