Pete Hegseth said to kill everybody, officials say

0:02The order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was simple. Kill them all. Officials told Post reporters about Hegseth's order to strike a boat in the Caribbean. And according to our exclusive reporting, that order became the opening salvo in the Trump administration's war on alleged drug traffickers coming from Venezuela. Now legal experts say the command from Hegseth may be more than just an aggressive military action. It could be considered a war crime or even murder.

0:36From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Kolby Ekowitz. It's Monday, December 1st. Today, we talk to national security reporter Alex Horton about why Hegseth's order is so controversial and how even Republican lawmakers are alarmed by this discovery.

0:59Alex, thank you so much for joining me. It's great to be back again, Kolby. So Alex, your reporting shows that Hegseth, he gave this kill order before the U.S. carried out a September 2nd attack on a boat in the Caribbean. And this would be the first of many more attacks over several months. Remind us, why was the Pentagon targeting these boats? So the Trump administration had handed down an edict to the entire government, which was protect the homeland from drug traffickers and drug trafficking, stop the flow of drugs. And ordinarily, Customs and Border Protection is interdicting stuff that crosses the border.

1:38The U.S. Coast Guard, which does have a law enforcement mission to track boats, to stop them, board them, and arrest the people on board for further prosecution and to seize the drugs. And they've been seizing tons and tons of cocaine for years and years in the region. And that's been their mission. And they're pretty good at it. But in this particular mission, the U.S. military was now playing a key role. So there were several warships dispatched in the region starting on September 2nd. And going forward today, that mission turned into a much more deadly and much more kinetic option for the Pentagon.

2:18So what is our understanding, and we've covered this on the show before, but what is our understanding? The U.S. like surveils this boat in the Caribbean, and then what happens? So this mission was overseen by some of the most capable and secretive units in the U.S. military, the unit that's commonly known as SEAL Team 6. So what we've learned from officials and from lawmakers on the Hill is there is some intelligence apparatus that tracks these boats either from point of origin. They have the capability to see if there's narcotics on board. And once the commanders have a good sense that these are not fishermen or just normal civilians doing normal civilian stuff, that's when they produce the authorization and the mission to strike them.

3:09And before they fire in this boat, this is when you've learned that the defense secretary gave a spoken directive. And this is according to people that were actually in the room. And he says. Kill them all. Kill them all. So they go into this strike with that directive. What happens to that boat when it gets hit? So U.S. forces launch a missile at that boat, and when it blew up, that caused a pretty significant fire. So there was a smoke column that obscured what was happening in the boat. And for several minutes, that's all analysts and commanders saw on the drone feed was this boat. That was just on fire.

3:56The Pentagon would later say that 11 people were killed in the strike. But back in the ops room, commanders and analysts were watching this play out, and the smoke started to clear, it became apparent there were two survivors who were left clinging to whatever records was left. The order that Joint Special Operations Commander Admiral Frank Bradley gave, based on his assessment, was to strike again. He said at the time that these men could still be in the fight. They could call other traffickers to come pick up them and pick up the drugs. And because of that, that they're still legitimate targets.

4:30So when he ordered up that second strike to kill them, he was fulfilling that original intent from Hegseth to kill everyone on that boat. And when that second missile strikes, those two men were blown apart in the water.

4:44Alex, I think it's important to note here that you served in the military and bring a lot of personal expertise to your reporting. So how unusual is it then that you would carry out a strike, see that they're survivors, and then strike again to ensure that those people are killed? This is a slippery slope of maritime law versus other kinds of law of warfare. You know, how it was described to us was, you know, Bradley's warding was, in so many words, they're still in the fight. That is a term of art to describe a combatant who can still do something. A classic example in Afghanistan, for instance, is you shoot a Taliban militant or he gets hit in an airstrike.

5:27Can he still push a button on his radio to give commands or to tell someone to come get him or tell someone to break a suicide vest? that's sort of the bar of like, can we hit this person again? It's a pretty low bar when it's on land because they can do all kinds of stuff. They could crawl to safety. They can get to a gun. They could patch themselves up. So the idea that you could hit survivors of a strike is permissible in a lot of situations when you're talking about, you know, someone walking around on land. A lot of this changes in the water. There is specific law of warfare guidelines when it comes to being shipwrecked because you can't go hide in a corner when you're in the middle of the ocean.

6:12There's nothing you can really do once you're shipwrecked. And the term is shipwrecked. You're in a boat. The boat is no longer seaworthy. You can't do anything. You're just fighting to survive. Yeah. So there is this line between what you can do when you hit someone in the water versus what you can do in land. And, of course, this was in water. It's a different calculus and it's a different standard of what's permissible in this kind of scenario. So the commander would have to be thinking, is the boat seaworthy? Do they have the ability to be picked up from elsewhere? and from our reporting, you know, we haven't said how far into the ocean it was, but the distance does not really provide a lot of evidence that there's someone close by or they can swim or even give their position to someone, like call on the radio if they have one or their phone if they have one after a missile blew up the boat to call them and say, hey, I'm going to drop you a pin and come get me.

7:14But, you know, when Bradley ordered the second strike, you know, he could have been thinking about if my boss, Pete Hegseth, said to kill everyone, is there a tiny chance these guys could live to fight another day? Or the drugs, which are the ultimate mission, can the drugs get picked up and eventually make their way to the United States? And following that logic, what should I do in this situation? So, you know, we can't get into his head. We've asked to speak to Secretary Hegseth himself about this, pending approval from the Pentagon press team. So, you There is a lot of these subtleties of whether it's okay or not to hit them.

7:53It's based on a lot of factors. Alex, this connection you're making to Afghanistan, what seems different is that we were at war with Afghanistan. That was a declared war. The people there knew we were at war. But this is not that. So how does the fact that we're not necessarily at war with anyone in Latin America factor into our understanding of what's going on here? Yes. I mean, a lot of what I just laid out is very – it's like almost an academic exercise when you consider are these people combatants or not? Because the law of war doesn't apply to people who are just people, right? Like just because they're traffickers or alleged traffickers or criminals doesn't mean that they are combatants.

8:35The administration has called them that. They said they're members of drug trafficking organizations, narco-terrorists. A lot of that is to unlock military authorities in the first place to strike people in this manner. But the fact of the matter is all the law of war subtleties that I laid out when it comes to combat on land specifically are Islamic State, Taliban militants, Al-Qaeda, groups like this that have an organization. They have arms. They have the ability and the interest to attack Americans and are doing so in these theaters and in the homeland. This is a different ball of wax entirely because these traffickers are most interested in delivering product that people will buy in the United States.

9:19All the experts we've talked to within DEA and other people who've worked in the region have said even if these drugs originate from these groups that the president and Hexeth are talking about, by the time you are in the business end of putting these drugs on a boat, these guys are – they're fishermen who are down on their luck. For the most part, these cartels find people, don't tell them where the drugs are from, and then they go on their way. These are not cartel kingpings that are running the drugs. These are people who have no clue where these drugs are at, and their only mission is to get it to a point they were told to go to.

9:55So this September attack, this becomes the first of many attacks by the U.S. military on what Trump has called, the administration has called, narco-terrorists. And now the Pentagon has hit at least 22 more boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. And they've killed dozens of these people, these alleged drug smugglers. This new information about Hegsa's kill order, why did that strike you as an important development? I think, well, first of all, this operation has been shrouded in so much secrecy. And I think last time we talked about this, you know, I made the point that we knew so much about the operation to strike nuclear facilities in Iran.

10:43For a secret operation to bomb facilities of another sovereign country, we had more details about how that operation went, who was involved, what aircraft were shooting, what munitions. And it's only until this story that was published just a few days ago that we revealed some of the key details of what's been happening for months. That it was and still remains a special operations mission. They are assessed. The intel is collected. And they are carried out by special operations troops. And not only that, by this strike and several that followed by the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, otherwise known as SEAL Team 6, which is the group that killed Osama bin Laden that rescued Captain Phillips.

11:33They are these kinds of guys going on these kinds of missions. And these targets are not those. These boats are not exquisite military targeting missions where they have to worry about defenses and air defense capabilities. So it's like you're ordering up the most exquisite solution to the most inexquisite target. This was such a black box to untangle. This particular unit was carrying out these strikes. That's a big reason why it's been so secret. And this whole region is under a command of a four-star general. They were not a part of any of this stuff. This was all delegated and controlled by the special operations community.

12:25So when you use, like, SEAL Team 6, does that allow you to keep it a secret? That's the idea. You're using these forces because these are the secretive forces, and you don't have to reveal all the details. Yes, and you've landed on an important point of like Congress in particular has been nonplussed about how much detail they're getting from the Pentagon. Even in classified briefings, they're walking out of there saying, we don't know anything about this stuff. So the president and the Pentagon will reach for these kinds of tools, SEAL Team 6, because they're the most capable and they have a lot of resources at their disposal.

13:06So that's one reason. The second reason is by using them, you're creating a de facto shroud that shields disclosure and information, not just from the public and the media, but from the Hill. That is one advantage to using these because they're deniable, they're secret, and only certain people have enough insight into what they're doing. I mean, why so important to keep it a secret? it. That's, I mean, that's what we're trying to understand better. I mean, the Justice Department, their Office of Legal Counsel, you know, came out with a memo and an opinion over the summer before the strikes happened that said, this is an operation against narco-terrorists.

13:50We believe we are in non-international armed conflict with these groups. And they also added another sort of wrinkle to that, that, you know, troops wouldn't be held liable for, you know, violations. It was constructed in such a way that they might have thought about sort of the irregularities of this mission. Because this goes back to the combatant versus noncombatant. Like if you're, they had to create that designation of terrorists and narco-terrorists and drug trafficking organizations to unlock the military capabilities to go after someone. Because, Because, you know, as the listeners might be aware, you can't just go shooting up people wherever you want.

14:30And in whatever manner you want. To use the U.S. military against a target, they have to be a target that threatens the interests of the United States. And depending on who you are, if you ask the Trump administration, these groups are funding drugs that come into America that kill Americans. and the way Trump has described it is like this is a deliberate effort to kill people and therefore these guys are a threat that requires military action. But the legal discussion and all the legal scholars looking at this are saying all of this is besides the point. These guys are alleged criminals and they're doing a bad thing.

15:06The way to take care of them is the way you've always done it. Interdict, arrest them, seize the drugs, destroy the drugs, and then prosecute them in whatever court, whether that's in the U.S. or another country. To strike them amounts to an extrajudicial killing is the broad conclusion of all these scholars, that all this stuff about, is this a war crime? That's besides the point of what these scholars have concluded, that these guys are not lawful targets at all. This amounts to murder on the high seas is what they've concluded. That's what I was going to ask you. Like, that sounds like what you're describing is murder.

15:43That's right. And the body of scholarly work forbids this kind of thing, especially using the military to do it. So that is, you know, we are hard pressed to find someone who's not in the administration to say these are lawful, lawful military targets. Are they lawful law enforcement targets? For sure. And they have been for decades. But can you send a missile into a drug trafficking boat and kill the occupants is another question entirely.

16:17After the break, how the Pentagon and Capitol Hill have responded to this exclusive reporting from The Post. We'll be right back.

16:37So, Alex, what has the Pentagon said about your reporting? Before we published the story, we approached the Pentagon with the facts of our reporting. They gave us a statement saying our reporting was untrue but didn't push back on any particular points. Later on, Secretary Hegseth addressed it himself on social media and through a statement, but he again did not go through any particular points. Crucially, he did not push back against the notion that there was a second strike and whether he had authorized it or not. So those elements of our story have not been challenged particularly. What about President Trump?

17:17Has he said anything about your reporting? Trump initially pushed back on a reporting saying he had doubts that the second strike happened. But later on, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt confirmed many aspects of her reporting, including that Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these strikes. She said Bradley worked well within the authority of the law. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.

17:53Since Leavitt gave those remarks, we heard from some officials who were concerned that her remarks didn't make it clear whether Exeth was going to take responsibility for the strikes or if he was going to put some of that burden on his military leadership. Most prominently would be Emerald Bradley. You mentioned that lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been frustrated by the lack of information that they've been able to receive about these strikes. From your reporting over the holiday weekend, what has been the response from Congress? Have there been lawmakers kind of weighing in about this? Republicans in Congress have gone along with Trump in a number of things.

18:35The Houthi mission in Yemen, you know, Rough Rider to strike those targets. Midnight Hammer in Iran to strike those nuclear facilities. They have been aboard with Trump this whole time on his use of the military. and I think are generally in favor of what's having the buildup of military forces. And the Caribbean, they seem to be generally on board, notwithstanding that this is an operation that is sidestepping Congress because there's no authorization of force specifically for this mission. So some members of Congress are mad about that. But generally, Republicans have been on board with how he's been using the military.

19:13This second strike, though, is significant in the way it has animated some Republican frustrations on the Hill. Now, for instance, you know, Representative Mike Turner from Ohio, he's a Trump backer. You know, he has significant concerns, he said, about that second strike and whether it was lawful. Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious. And I agree that that would be an illegal act. And the way he explained it was he didn't have those details beforehand. There are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats down in the Caribbean and the Pacific and the legal justification that's been provided.

19:52But this is completely outside of anything that has been discussed with Congress, and there is an ongoing investigation. After our story published, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, both led by Republicans, said they would investigate not just the broader Southern spirit campaign against these traffickers, but that first in particular. So we've established that we have this quote unquote war on narco terrorists, but we haven't declared war on Venezuela itself. And yet the Trump administration has done things even in the last few weeks to show that maybe we are inching closer to a war there.

20:30Right? So the thing hanging over all of this is Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro, right? The buildup, certainly, you know, when we talk about the aircraft carriers and all the submarine that's in the Caribbean, what are they doing? The president and his top aides on this, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have never – they never had a love for Maduro and they've always wanted him out. This goes back to the first Trump administration. So there seems to be a connective tissue between these strikes pinning some of it or all of it on Venezuela itself by saying they're sending drugs and violence to American shores.

21:13We have to do something about that. And Nicolas Maduro is at the center of it, is their claim. Therefore, these strikes of these boats are in parallel with another military buildup in the region that is aimed at the ultimate goal of Maduro leaving power and going on his way. Whether that's a military operation to do that from the United States, whether that's a CIA mission to back separatists and the government in waiting, we don't know. But the pieces certainly are there for something to happen. And we've seen a number of surveillance flights and B-52 bombers going to the Venezuelan coast. We've seen a special operations mothership with helicopters flying within 100 miles of Venezuela.

22:01but the people I've spoken to about this is everything that's in the region now are there for options because there's a whole ladder of what you can do. You can do all that stuff with the stuff that's there now and the stuff that can get in there quick. So all that to say, we don't know, but when something starts to happen, it'll happen quick is my read.

22:28Alex, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this exclusive reporting with us Yeah, happy to be here, Colby, thank you

22:39Alex Horton is a national security reporter for The Post That's it for Post Reports Thanks for listening If you love the show, help other people discover it by leaving a rating on Spotify or rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Today's show was produced by Rennie Svarnovsky with help from Reena Flores and Sabby Robinson. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to editor Ben Palker. I'm Kolbie Echowitz. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from The Washington Post.

23:20Thank you.