White House says admiral ordered second strike on Venezuelan drug boat: ‘Right to take them out’
The White House announced that the Pentagon had cleared a second lethal strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug boat and reaffirmed that the two attacks carried out in September were legally justified.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave Admiral Frank Bradley the authority to launch a follow‑up strike after the first one left two people clinging to the wreckage.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narcoterrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt said. “With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes.”
Leavitt added that Bradley, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the vehicle was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”
These statements followed a Washington Post report that a Joint Special Operations Command commander ordered a second airstrike on a speedboat carrying 11 suspected Tren de Aragua narco‑terrorists on Sept. 2, after the initial strike left two survivors. The report said the second strike was carried out because of a verbal directive from Hegseth: “The order was to kill everybody.”
A second strike to finish off the vessel instead of turning it over for aid and arrests could be viewed as a war crime under international law, but the Trump administration maintains that the strike was warranted for “self defense.”
“The strike conducted on Sept. 2 was conducted in self defense to protect Americans and vital United States interests,” Leavitt said in a prepared statement. “The strike was conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”
Leavitt later emphasized why these lethal strikes are happening, noting that Trump had labeled Nicolás Maduro’s narco‑terrorists, such as Tren de Aragua, as foreign terror organizations, giving the U.S. military legal authority to destroy the drug boats. “The President has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America and if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing,” she added.
Her remarks came after President Trump denied the Washington Post’s claim that Hegseth had ordered the elimination of any survivors from the September strike.
“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from Mar‑a‑Lago. “And I believe him.”
He also said he would not have wanted that—“not a second strike”—but that the administration would “look into” the matter. “He said he did not say that,” Trump repeated, “and I believe him, 100 %.”
The president is scheduled to meet with his national‑security team on Monday evening to discuss next steps in the Venezuelan crisis, as 11 U.S. warships and 15,000 troops stand ready in the waters off the South American country.
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