Leavitt addresses report on Hegseth’s alleged order in Venezuelan boat strike

The White House said the Pentagon authorized a second lethal military strike against an alleged Venezuelan drug boat — and insisted the double attack in September was legal.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to order the follow-up strike on the suspected drug trafficking boat after two people survived the first attack.

“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 told reporters on Monday. “With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes.”

Bradley, head of the US Special Operations Command, “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the vote was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” she added.

The comments comes after the Washington Post reported Friday that a Joint Special Operations Command commander ordered a second airstrike on a speedboat carrying 11 suspected Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists Sept. 2, after the first strike left two people clinging to the wreckage. The double strike happened because of a verbal directive from Hegseth: “The order was to kill everybody,” the paper reported.

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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting with Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader at the National Palace, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on Nov. 26, 2025.REUTERS
A second strike to finish off the pair in lieu of aid and arrests could be considered a war crime under international law — but the Trump administration is standing by claims that the second 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.”

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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Oct. 28, 2025, that the US military killed 14 alleged narco-terrorists in a series of strikes against four suspected drug vessels in the Eastern Pacific.Secretary of War Pete Hegseth/X
Leavitt later added “one more point to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place” — noting that Trump has designated Nicolás Maduro’s narcoterrorists such as Tren de Aragua as foreign terror organizations, giving the US military the legal authority to blast the drug boats out of the water.

“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 said.

Her comments come after President Trump on Sunday said he did not believe the Washington Post report that Hegseth ordered that no survivors be left from the September strike in the Caribbean Sea.

“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 his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “And I believe him.”

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President Trump on Sunday told reporters that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth denied ordering a second strike on a Venezuelan drug boat.REUTERS
The president went on to say that he “wouldn’t have wanted that — not a second strike,” but that the administration would “look into” the issue.

“He said he did not say that,” the president reiterated, “and I believe him, 100%.”

Trump is meeting with his national security team Monday evening in part to discuss next steps in the Venezuelan crisis as 11 US warships and 15,000 troops stand by in the waters near the South American nation.