President Donald Trump convened a meeting of his Cabinet Tuesday morning, where he previewed imminent military action in Venezuela and Colombia and sought to prop up War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
For months, the Trump administration has been conducting air strikes on alleged narco-terrorist boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, in addition to steadily building up the American military presence in the region. But, over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Hegseth ordered a “double tap” on two survivors of a September strike, a possible violation of American rules of engagement.
Though Hegseth, and to a lesser extent Trump, denied the report out of hand, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Adm. Mitch Bradley, not Hegseth, ordered the follow-up strike in question. Leavitt additionally defended the order, claiming that Bradley was “well within his authority” to eliminate narco-terrorists.
Hegseth, as the third-ranking official, was customarily seated to Trump’s left during the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, yet Trump notably made it a point to show his approval for the “great job” Hegseth has done as secretary.
Trump singled out Hegseth as the first Cabinet member in the room, even before Vice President JD Vance, to tout his efforts as the secretary of war, including the strikes against drug traffickers, after the president had concluded his remarks.
“I’ll say it again, we’ve only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean, because they’ve been poisoning the American people. And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed them to come across the border,” Hegseth claimed. “President Trump said, ‘No, we’re taking the gloves off. We’re taking the fight to these designated terror organizations, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, so we’re stopping the drugs. We’re striking the boats. We’re defeating narco-terrorists.”
“Drugs coming in through the sea, by sea are down, 91%, and I don’t know who the 9% is,” Trump said, interrupting Hegseth to champion his attacks on narco-terrorists.
“We’ve had a bit of a pause, because it’s hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter,” Hegseth chimed in on Trump’s heels.
The Pentagon held a “new media” briefing on Monday, weeks after the traditional Pentagon press corps, including the Washington Examiner, forfeited their department workspaces after objecting to new requirements Hegseth outlined for journalists.
But Tuesday marked the first day that Hegseth faced tough questions about the strikes in person. He again reiterated his attacks against a report from the Washington Post as a fake story planted in the press.
Hegseth claimed he did not see any survivors from a first attack on suspected drug smugglers in Latin America, despite the Washington Post reporting there were two survivors after the first attack and that Hegseth gave the spoken order to kill the entire crew on the vessel.
Trump himself stated Tuesday that he “[wants] those boats taken out” and suggested that “if we have to, we’ll attack on land also.”
“Every boat that you see get blown up, we save 25,000, on average, lives. 25,000 lives,” said Trump. “They’ve been sending enough of this horrible fentanyl and other things like cocaine and other things, but fentanyl right now is the leader of the pack to kill our entire nation.”
Trump’s land warning
The president continued: “The land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we’re going to start that very soon, too.
“When we start that, we’re going to drive those numbers down so low, and then you can have families be able to live without the fear of their son or daughter just having a pill to have a little fun and end up dying within a period of 60 seconds.”
Trump also hinted at expanding his military campaign to targets in other Latin American countries, specifically Colombia.
“The country of Colombia is making cocaine. They have cocaine manufacturing plants, OK? And then they sell us their cocaine. We appreciate that very much, but, yeah, anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack,” he told reporters.
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You can watch Trump’s Cabinet meeting in full below.