Name: Hegseth says he didn't see survivors before second strike on boat | REUTERS
Uploaded: 2025-12-03T16:49:47.000Z
Duration: 1 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

defense Secretary Pete Hexsep said Tuesday that he watched in real time as the first US strike in September hit an alleged drug smuggling boat.

But he said he didn't see any survivors in the water or witnessed a second deadly strike, which he described as happening in the, quote, fog of war.

Hegseth defended that follow up strike, which now faces bipartisan scrutiny in Congress amid concerns about the legality of the administration's actions.

A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the.

Which he had the complete authority to do.

And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.

officials told Reuters that Hegseth had ordered the lethal strikes on drug vessels, including the one in question.

However, those officials did not confirm the Defense Secretary's involvement in the decision to carry out the second strike.

They say operational control was handed to Admiral Frank Bradley, who leads U.S. special Operations Command.

The White House said on Monday that Bradley had authorisation to conduct the second strike.

A Washington Post report said the commander overseeing the operation ordered a second strike to take out the two survivors in order to comply with the Pentagon chief's direction that everyone be killed.

Trump, who told reporters on Sunday that he wouldn't have wanted the second strike, largely voiced support on Tuesday while saying he hadn't known about it.

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.

It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes.

Somebody asked me a question about the second strike.