MILES PARKS, HOST:
There is no hotter seat in Washington this week than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's. On Thursday, the Department of Defense's inspector general released a report saying that Hegseth violated agency policy by using a messaging app, Signal, earlier this year to share highly sensitive military plans. The watchdog report said that his use of the app could have put troops at risk ahead of U.S. military strikes in Yemen.
On top of that, Congress is showing bipartisan interest in scrutinizing the Secretary's role in boat strikes in the Caribbean, strikes that seem to be continuing even as there are real questions about their legality. Amid all of this, Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is calling for Hegseth to resign. Senator Warner joins me now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
MARK WARNER: Hey, Miles, thank you.
PARKS: Thanks for being here. So talk me through why you think Secretary Hegseth should resign.
WARNER: Well, first, this is not something new. I called for his resignation in the spring when the Signal fiasco happened, and then we have the actions of this week. The backstory on this strike that took place in early September where a drug boat or alleged drug boat was struck - 11 people on the boat, nine were immediately killed, two were left on, and then there was a second strike that included three separate sets of munitions.
And this video needs to be seen by the American public. It is beyond chilling. And the fact that Hegseth, I believe by this action, has literally put American troops potentially in legal harm's way underneath the international rules about lawful conflict, I'm not making - drawing any conclusions here because when you make the accusation about war crimes, that is a accusation - once made, cannot be retracted. But we are in those waters or in that area because, again, I think, this constant, careless, sloppy approach from Pete Hegseth.
PARKS: Well, so you were in this briefing with Admiral Frank Bradley this week, where you watched this video from September 2 showing the second strike on this alleged drug boat that killed the boat's survivors. As you mentioned, this video has not been made public. Can you describe a little bit more what it showed?
WARNER: This administration is all about trying to publicize its actions. Parts of the video, of the initial strike, were shown as Hegseth bragged about this in the aftermath. The fact that the whole video was not released at that point - the fact that, I think, frankly, those of us in Congress didn't know that there was this second strike is really, really troubling.
You know, I'm not going to tell what conclusions I drew, but - and this is why people need to see it - but beyond chilling. Individuals that were clearly - in my mind, at least - out of the fight, grasping on to the portion of the boat that was still floating, and the fact that the drugs were potentially still on the boat - which, by the way, they never even tried to interdict at all - somehow justified this second strike. I don't know any reasonable person that would make the judgment that this was - these were still active combatants.
PARKS: Well, that's what - I'm sorry, I'm struggling to follow a little bit, Senator, because you're saying you're not making a decisive decision on whether you feel like this strike was legal. But everything I'm hearing - the fact that these were defenseless people, that the ship was already damaged to the point that it posed no immediate threat to the United States - and you're saying any reasonable person would probably think this was illegal. Do you feel like this strike was illegal?
WARNER: Miles, once you make the claim about war crimes - and if proven, that not only reflects on Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration, it reflects on the admiral involved, it reflects on the status of American military, how we are viewed not only in this country, but in the world. And so I want to see the execution order. I want to hear the communications between the admiral who made the second strike decision. I want to have all that data point. Obviously, I'm very, very, very troubled and, you know, I'm trying to hold back my final judgment. But as you indicate, this is a very chilling video.
PARKS: I want to ask big picture about Secretary Hegseth's future at the Department of Defense because following the inspector general's report about his communications on Signal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt kind of echoed his defenses, that no classified information was leaked, that operational security was not compromised, and that kind of indicates that the president is still standing with the secretary. Do you have any sense of whether any of this has changed his standing within the administration?
WARNER: Well, let's just deal with what Hegseth and the press secretary said. It's just not factually true. There would've been no problem at all if this original information wasn't classified. You wouldn't have anything classified in the document if it wasn't classified. So the idea there's no harm here, no foul - just not factually true.
PARKS: What comes next when it comes to congressional oversight, specifically of the attacks on the boats in the Caribbean?
WARNER: I believe we need the legal opinion. Congress has been able to read it. I think the public ought to read it. I think the video, the entire video, ought to be shown not only to Congress, but the American public. And it's - at the end of the day, I don't believe we would have had this if we'd had a secretary of defense that had experience, competency and leadership and, frankly, showed basic respect to our military and the professionalism of our military.
PARKS: That's Senator Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia. Thanks, Senator, for joining us.
WARNER: Thank you, Miles. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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