Trump on 'Second Strike' Killing Survivors; Hegseth Defends Admiral Bradley's Call

A political storm is brewing over a controversial military strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea. Fresh reports allege the September 2nd operation involved a "second strike" that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of the initial attack. The controversy pits President Donald Trump's public denial of knowing about the second strike against his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has staunchly defended the commander of the operation, Admiral Frank "Mitch" Bradley.

#DrugBoatStrike #PeteHegseth #DonaldTrump #AdmiralBradley #DoubleTapStrike

Transcript

00:00I wanted to clarify something that you had said on Sunday regarding the boat strikes near Venezuela.

00:06You had said that you didn't know if the second strike on that one boat had happened, but you wouldn't have wanted it.

00:12Now that your administration has acknowledged that it happened, do you support that second strike?

00:17And, Mr. Secretary, I wanted to clarify something you had said in an interview back in September, I believe on Fox News.

00:22You said that you had watched that strike live on television.

00:26In real time, did you know that there were survivors after the initial strike?

00:31Well, look, all I know is this.

00:33Every boat that you see get blown up.

00:35We save 25,000 on average lives, 25,000 lives.

00:39They've been sending enough of this horrible fentanyl and other things like cocaine and other things.

00:47But fentanyl right now is the leader of the pack to kill our entire nation.

00:53Because a little speck of the head of a pin can kill somebody.

00:57It's very dangerous stuff.

00:59I know so many people where their sons were drug addicts.

01:01They had one little sample and they died.

01:04They died.

01:05They were they couldn't believe it.

01:07But as far as the attack is concerned, I didn't, you know, I still haven't gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete.

01:15But to me, it was an attack.

01:16It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes.

01:19Somebody asked me a question about the second strike.

01:21I didn't know about the second strike.

01:22I didn't know anything about people.

01:24I wasn't involved in it.

01:25I knew they took out a boat.

01:26But I would say this.

01:29They had a strike.

01:31I hear the gentleman that was in charge of that is extraordinary.

01:35He's an extraordinary person.

01:36Let Pete speak about it.

01:38But Pete was satisfied.

01:40Pete didn't know about second attack having to do with two people.

01:45And I guess Pete would have to speak to it.

01:48I can say this.

01:50I want those boats taken out.

01:51And if we have to, we'll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea.

01:55And there's very little coming in by sea.

01:57I think we've knocked out over 90 percent of it.

02:00There's very little.

02:00And I understand that.

02:02There's very little.

02:03We're saving hundreds of thousands of lives with those pinpoint attacks.

02:08It's an amazing thing when you see a boat going along.

02:11And, you know, a lot of the press would like to say they're not.

02:14You see them, but they're not maybe drugs.

02:16You see these boats.

02:17First of all, who has five engines on the back of a boat going in weird directions

02:23and loaded up with lots of white containers, their bags, their things.

02:30No, they've done an amazing job.

02:32And Pete has done an amazing job.

02:34Pete, you could probably just want to answer the question.

02:36No, you're spot on, sir.

02:37I think you've got to start with the baseline, which Marco laid out.

02:40Everybody's laid out.

02:41We've got 20 million people invading our country over four years.

02:45We don't know where they're coming from.

02:46That includes trendy Aragua and cartels and violent criminals.

02:49They bring drugs, and you mentioned it, Mr. President, poisoning, an intentional poisoning of the American people,

02:55killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

02:58So the President had the courage to designate these cartels as designated terrorist organizations.

03:04A number of us here served in the military and spent 20 years fighting terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIS on the other side of the world.

03:11How do you treat al-Qaeda and ISIS?

03:13Do you arrest them and treat them, pat them on the head and say, don't do that again?

03:16Or do you end the problem directly by taking a lethal, kinetic approach?

03:22And that's the way President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at these cartels.

03:27And I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals, our professionals like Mitch Bradley,

03:32Admiral Mitch Bradley and others at JSOC and SOCOM and other commanders.

03:35The deliberative process, the detail, the rigorous, the intel, the legal, the evidence-based way that we're able to,

03:43with sources and methods that we can't reveal here,

03:46make sure that every one of those drug boats is tied to a designated terrorist organization.

03:51We know who's on it, what they're doing, what they're carrying.

03:53All these white bales are not Christmas gifts from Santa.

03:57This is drugs running on four-meter motor fast boats or submarines that we've also struck.

04:02No one's fishing on a submarine.

04:04And I have empowered them to make that call.

04:08Now, the first couple of strikes, as you would, as any leader would want,

04:12you want to own that responsibility.

04:13So I said, I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information

04:17and make sure it's the right strike.

04:19That was September 2nd.

04:20There's a lot of intelligence that goes into building that case

04:24and understanding that a lot of people are providing information.

04:26I watched that first strike live.

04:28As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we've got a lot of things to do.

04:31So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever,

04:34where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs.

04:38So I moved on to my next meeting.

04:40A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the,

04:43which he had the complete authority to do,

04:45and by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision

04:48to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.

04:51He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat.

04:56And he was the right call, we have his back, and the American people are safer

05:01because narco-terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water

05:06and eventually on land if necessary to the American people.

05:10We will eliminate that threat, and we're proud to do it.

05:13So you didn't see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike?

05:16You personally.

05:17I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire.

05:22It was exploded, and fire and smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital.

05:25This is called the fog of war.

05:27This is what you and the press don't understand.

05:30You sit in your air-conditioned offices, or up on Capitol Hill,

05:33and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post

05:37about kill everybody, phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything,

05:41not based in any truth at all.

05:43And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes,

05:48about the judgment that they made.

05:49I wrote a whole book on this topic,

05:52because of what politicians and the press does to warfighters.

05:55President Trump has empowered commanders,

05:57commanders to do what is necessary,

05:59which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night

06:02on behalf of the American people.

06:04We support them, and we will stop the poisoning of the American people.

06:07And, Mr. Secretary, on the second strike,

06:09you said it happened more than an hour after the first?

06:12I couldn't tell you the exact amount of time.

06:14Minutes, or you had left the room with what you're saying.

06:16I already stated my answer quite clearly.

06:18So, remember this.

06:20We lost last year.

06:21I think it was more than that, but, you know,

06:23people don't like saying it,

06:24because they always said 100,000, 115,000,

06:27numbers we've been hearing for years.

06:29So, we lost last year more than 200,000 people,

06:32dead people, ruined families beyond the 200,000.

06:37And those 200,000, that family will never be the same.

06:39But these people have killed over 200,000 people,

06:43actually killed over 200,000 people last year.

06:47And those numbers are down.

06:50Those numbers are down.

06:51They're way down.

06:52And they're down because we're doing these strikes,

06:55and we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too.

06:57You know, the land is much easier.

06:59It's much easier.

07:00And we know the routes they take.

07:02We know everything about them.

07:03We know where they live.

07:05We know where the bad ones live.

07:06And we're going to start that very soon, too.

Trump on 'Second Strike' Killing Survivors; Hegseth Defends Admiral Bradley's Call | APT

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