President Donald Trump denied on Monday that he ever supported releasing video of the second strike on a suspected drug boat as controversy continues to swirl around the U.S. military’s actions in the Caribbean in early September.
Trump said last Wednesday that “whatever” Secretary Pete Hegseth’s War Department had, “we’d certainly release, no problem.” On Monday, however, the president told reporters at the White House that he never agreed to make the full video of the second strike public.
“Mr. President, you said you would have ‘no problem’ with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2 off the coast of Venezuela,” one reporter stated.
“I didn’t say that,” the president replied. “You said that, I didn’t say that.”
Trump added, “Whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is okay with me.”
Hegseth has come under fire from Democrats and some Republicans after the “double-tap” strike on a boat that the Trump administration said was trafficking illicit drugs to the United States. The administration released a 29-second unclassified video showing the first strike on September 2, but the full video of the follow-up strike has been shown to only a select few lawmakers.
Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to meet with top intelligence committee lawmakers on Tuesday behind closed doors. The Trump officials will likely be asked more questions about the “double-tap” strike during the meeting.
Trump told POLITICO in a wide-ranging interview released on Tuesday that he watched the footage of the second strike and continues to give Hegseth his full confidence.
“He’s doing a great job,” Trump said, adding that he doesn’t care if Hegseth testifies under oath about the strike.
The president said that the footage was “not pretty,” but added, “It looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat, but I don’t get involved in that.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Sunday that he watched the footage of the second strike, adding that he would not have “any problem” with releasing the footage to the public.
“It’s not gruesome. I didn’t find it distressing or disturbing. It looks like any number of dozens of strikes we’ve seen on Jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years,” Cotton said. He added that he would understand if the War Department had concerns about releasing the footage, since it could reveal too much to drug cartels about how the U.S. military is conducting the strikes.
Democrats who saw the footage are calling on the administration to release the video. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the footage of the second strike was “deeply disturbing.”
“There were two survivors on an overturned boat. When they were finally taken out, they weren’t trying to flip the boat over. The boat was clearly incapacitated,” Smith said. “A tiny portion of it remained capsized, the bow of the boat. They had no communications device. Certainly they were unarmed.”
“Any claim that the drugs had somehow survived that attack is hard to really square with what we saw,” he added. “So it was deeply disturbing. It did not appear that these two survivors were in any position to continue the fight.”
When asked if the War Department would release the additional footage, Hegseth said over the weekend that the administration is currently “reviewing the process,” and did not commit to releasing the full video.
“Whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible about reviewing that right now,” Hegseth added.
After Trump ramped up border security upon returning to office, he moved his attention to preventing drugs from reaching American shores. The strikes on the suspected “narcoterrorists,” which began in September, have taken out 23 boats and 87 suspected drug runners.
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