War Secretary Pete Hegseth clashed with a reporter after defending the strike on a Venezuelan drug boat, rejecting criticism of the alleged “Kill-all” order. Hegseth told colleagues the vessel was burning, he saw no survivors, and the strike was still “the right call,” blaming the chaos on “the fog of war” and accusing the press of not understanding battlefield realities.
00:00As you would, as any leader would want, you want to own that responsibility.
00:03So 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.
00:08There's a lot of intelligence that goes into that building that case and understanding that a lot of people providing information.
00:14And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.
00:20The American people are safer because narco terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water and eventually on land if necessary to the American people.
00:30The first couple of strikes, as you would, as any leader would want, you want to own that responsibility.
00:35So 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.
00:40That was September 2nd.
00:42There's a lot of intelligence that goes into that building that case and understanding that a lot of people providing information.
00:48I watched that first strike lot.
00:50As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do.
00:53So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurred.
01:00So I moved on to my next meeting.
01:01A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the, which he had the complete authority to do.
01:07And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.
01:13He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat.
01:17And it was the right call.
01:20We have his back.
01:21And the American people are safer.
01:23Because narco-terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water and eventually on land if necessary to the American people.
01:32We will eliminate that threat.
01:33And we're proud to do it.
01:34So you didn't see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike?
01:38I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire.
01:44It was exploded and fire, smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital.
01:47This is called the fog of war.
01:49This is what you and the press don't understand.
01:52You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody.
02:00Phrases on anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in any truth at all.
02:05And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.
02:11I wrote a whole book on this topic.
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