In a media landscape that often feels like a carnival of the absurd, the latest controversy exploding out of Washington might just take the cake—or, as Greg Gutfeld might put it, the cheesecake. The “Coke Boat Hoax” has officially emerged from the depths, dragging with it a net full of media hypocrisy, retracted narratives, and a level of outrage from the Left that has left conservative commentators asking: Since when did drug cartels get their own PR team?

The “War Crime” That Wasn’t

The storm began with a report from The Washington Post, which leveled a bombshell accusation against Pete Hegseth. The claim? That Hegseth, in his capacity within the Trump administration’s aggressive new anti-drug operations, had committed a “war crime” by ordering a second strike on a disabled cartel boat, allegedly to “finish off” the survivors.

It was the kind of story that sends cable news green rooms into a frenzy. There was just one problem: it appears to be completely false.

As Gutfeld highlighted in his opening monologue, the narrative collapsed almost as quickly as it was built. “It shouldn’t shock you that the people who brought you Russia Gate were heavy on speculation and light on reality,” Gutfeld quipped. “Because even the New York Times is calling the story fake, saying Pete ordered the strikes but he didn’t say kill survivors.”

When the New York Times—hardly a bastion of pro-Trump sentiment—is stepping in to debunk an anti-Trump hit piece from the Washington Post, you know the narrative has hit an iceberg. But facts rarely stop a good outrage cycle, especially when The View is involved.

The View’s “Mogadishu” Moment

Despite the debunking, the hosts of The View wasted no time in labeling the operation a “stone-cold war crime” and “flat-out murder.” The clips played on Gutfeld! showed the panel in high dudgeon, with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar condemning the strikes with the kind of moral certainty usually reserved for actual atrocities.

Gutfeld, never one to let such hyperbole slide, unleashed one of his most savage roasts to date. “So now The View are experts on war crimes?” he asked incredulously. “Sorry, the closest these broads have come to war was when they once launched a frontal assault on a Cheesecake Factory. That was their Mogadishu.”

The audience roared, but the point underlying the humor was serious. The shift in the media’s stance—from ignoring the border crisis and the fentanyl epidemic to suddenly weeping for the fate of cartel operatives—strikes many as politically motivated theater. “Now do you really buy that any of these hacks actually care about who’s being killed?” Gutfeld asked. “They didn’t care about the gangs when they terrorized our cities… and now they care. But as usual, the victims they choose to care about aren’t the same as ours.”

Deterrence or “Travel Agents”?

At the center of the storm is Pete Hegseth himself, who appeared in a clip to defend the logic of the strikes. His argument was rooted in a concept that has long been absent from U.S. drug policy: deterrence.

“Deterrence has to matter,” Hegseth stated firmly. “Not arrest and hand over and then do it again.” He addressed the “fog of war,” noting that when a vessel is exploding in fire and smoke, verifying the status of everyone on board is not exactly a standard police procedure.

Gutfeld supported this “take the gloves off” approach, mocking the media’s attempt to rebrand narco-terrorists as merely “people trying to make a buck.” He drew a grim parallel to human traffickers, whom he sarcastically referred to as “travel agents for the poor.”

“There is no such thing as a narco-terrorist?” Gutfeld challenged, quoting the liberal defense. “People on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean carrying cocaine are not a direct threat? … Trump could do anything, including getting a Democrat to come out in favor of capitalism.”

The Panel Weighs In: Hypocrisy and “New Territory”

The Gutfeld! panel, featuring Ben Shapiro, Dave Landau, Kat Timpf, and Tyrus, dissected the fallout with a mix of humor and analysis.

Ben Shapiro, known for his rapid-fire logic, pointed out the absurdity of the entire debate. “The New York Times already debunked the story,” Shapiro noted. “So we’re actually arguing over a thing that almost certainly did not happen.” He likened the media’s fantasy to imagining Hegseth “drinking a beer with his tie wrapped around his head going ‘Hit it again!’”

Shapiro also offered a dark, provocative “solution” to get the Democrats on board with the strikes. “I think that the Trump administration should encourage the Venezuelans to send fetuses to ship the drugs,” he joked, “because that way when he hits it with a Hellfire missile, the Democrats are just happy.”

It was a line that drew gasps and laughs, perfectly encapsulating the show’s willingness to go where others won’t.

Tyrus Claims the Credit

In a moment of levity, Tyrus—the towering former wrestler and Fox News regular—claimed a bit of credit for the new policy. He recalled a previous segment where he suggested to Donald Trump directly that drug dealers should be designated as terrorists and their boats blown up.

“My question was, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you made all the drug dealers terrorists and you blew them up?’” Tyrus reminisced. “And he said, ‘That’s a good idea.’”

While Tyrus acknowledged that the “original theory” of naval warfare might frown upon targeting survivors in the water, he argued that this is “new territory.” He expressed zero sympathy for the targets. “I don’t feel sorry for the guys getting blown up because… in America, no one’s feeling sorry for the poor kids who think they were taking an Adderall pill who took fentanyl.”

The Fog of Trump

The overarching theme of the night was what Gutfeld dubbed the “Fog of Trump”—a condition where the media’s hatred for the former (and future?) president obscures their ability to see reality. In their rush to paint the administration as villainous, they end up twisting themselves into pretzels, defending the rights of international drug cartels while ignoring the carnage those cartels cause on American soil.

As the “Coke Boat Hoax” sinks into the annals of retracted news stories, it leaves behind a stark reminder of the divide in American culture. On one side, an administration and its supporters who believe in “peace through strength” and the annihilation of threats. On the other, a media class so desperate for a scandal that they will turn a blind eye to the New York Times fact-check just to keep the outrage machine running.

For Gutfeld and his crew, it’s just another Wednesday. The media frauds emerge, they get smacked down with a joke and a fact-check, and the show goes on. But for the American public, it raises a question that isn’t so funny: If the media will lie about a boat explosion, what else are they lying about?