Trump backs Hegseth amid strike questions
By: Francesca Chambers
and James Powel
USA Today
..... President Donald Trump says he will look into whether the United States carried out a second strike against a boat in the Caribbean that the administration says was smuggling drugs, as he defended his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth form an accusation that he ordered military officials to "kill them all" prior to the lethal strike.
.....
Senator Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, said on the November 30 [2025] episode of "Meet the Press" that the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a public hearing on potentially illegal military orders issued by Hegseth.
..... "We're going to put these people under oath and we're going to find out what happened," Kelly said, referring to military members involved in a September w [2025] strike ordered by Hegseth on survivors of an initial hit on a boat that the Trump administration claimed was carrying drug cargo, referring to a November 28 [2025] report in The Washington Post that cited anonymous sources.
..... "People can tell the difference, should be able to tell the difference, between something that is unlawful and something that is lawful," Kelly said.
..... Hegseth called the Post's report "fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory," and Trump allies have responded by questioning the story's accuracy.
..... "I don't know anything about it," Trump told reprot4ers November 30. [2025] "He said he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%. He says he didn't do it."
..... Chairman of the Senate Armed service Committee Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi said in a November 28 [2025] statement the committee has directed inquiries to the Department of Defense about the strikes, "and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to those circumstances."
..... Wicker, along with Senator Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the committee, have sent Hegseth multiple request for basic information including legal justifications and intelligence underpinning individual strikes.
.....
"This administration has tied themselves in knots (with) the explanations that we have received on how this is all legal," Kelly said in "Meet the Press."
..... The Trump administration's lethal strikes on alleged drug boats that the United States says were aimed at deterring Venezuelan traffickers was already facing congressional scrutiny, and after the latest reporting, lawmakers on the Armed Service committees in the House and Senate pledged to provide rigorous oversight of the operation.
..... Since September, [2025] the administration is known to have carried out strikes on at least 21 boats in international waters that killed 83 people. The reported second strike on the suspected drug boat took place on September 2. [2025]
..... Trump could not say on November 20 [2025] if a second strike had taken place, telling reporters riding on Air Force One. "I don't know. I'm going to find out about it. But Pete said he did not oder the death of those two men."
..... The legality of the ongoing strikes is in dispute. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said they violate international law, and Democrats in Congress are demanding the Justice Department release a classified Office of Legal Counsel opinion that reportedly says U.S. military personnel involved in the strikes cannot be prosecuted.
..... Contributing: Joey Garrison, Phillip M. Bailey and Zac Anderson, USA Today