Updated December 4, 2025 at 12:52 PM AKST
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced scrutiny on two fronts Thursday, as lawmakers zeroed in on the legality of a Sept. 2 strike on survivors aboard an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, while separately a Pentagon watchdog faulted him for using Signal to discuss a U.S. attack on Yemen.
Lawmakers in both chambers were shown video of the boat strike behind closed doors in briefings with Navy Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the Special Operations commander who oversaw the operation. After those briefings, leading Democrats expressed shock at what they saw, with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee calling it "one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service."
"You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States," said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn. "Under the D.O.D. manual for abiding by the laws of armed conflict, the specific example given of an impermissible action is attacking a shipwreck," he said. "Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors."
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told reporters the video showed "two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight." Cotton, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, described multiple strikes taking place "minutes apart," but said he did not see "anything disturbing about it." He called the strikes "entirely lawful."
The briefings appeared to offer new specifics on an attack that has raised questions from lawmakers and military experts over whether the strikes broke U.S. law or if they constituted a war crime under the administration's assertion that the U.S. is at war with narco traffickers.
When asked about it during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Trump said he didn't know about the second strike.
"I didn't know anything about people," Trump added, referring to the survivors. "I wasn't involved in it."
Hegseth said he did not make the call for any subsequent boat strikes after authorizing the initial strike, but defended sinking the boat and Bradley's decision-making.
"I watched that first strike live," Hegseth said. "As you can imagine, the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I moved on to my next meeting."
During Thursday's briefings, Bradley told lawmakers that he was under no order to kill everyone on board, according to both Cotton and Himes.
But lawmakers are still demanding additional transparency from the White House. After meeting with Bradley, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said he still had "serious questions about the legality of all the strikes" in the Caribbean.
"If we don't insist upon strict observation of the rules of war, we can't expect our opponents to do it, and as a result we're jeopardizing the lives of young men and women in our armed services," he said in an interview with All Things Considered.
Reed is among several Democrats who have called on the administration to release the full video of the strike. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he would be willing to release video from the strike, but added that he wasn't aware what footage was captured. He went on to broadly justify the administration's campaign, arguing that by stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S., it benefits the American people.
"Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives," Trump said.
Watchdog report on Signalgate released
The focus on the boat strike was one of two high-profile operations under focus on Thursday. As Bradley was on Capitol Hill, a Pentagon watchdog released a report finding that Hegseth violated agency policy by using the Signal messaging app to discuss U.S. airstrikes in Yemen earlier this year.
The investigation's findings were the culmination of a months-long probe led by Pentagon Inspector General Steven Stebbins, following a request from the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was started after a journalist for The Atlantic reported in March that he had been added to a Signal group chat where a handful of top officials discussed plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The 84-page report concludes that Hegseth's decision to share highly sensitive military plans on the commercially available encrypted messaging app, using his personal cell phone, could have jeopardized the safety of American servicemembers and the mission.
"The Secretary sent nonpublic DoD information identifying the quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately 2 to 4 hours before the execution of those strikes," according to the report.
"Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives," it added.
Hegseth declined to be interviewed for Stebbins' investigation and instead provided only a written statement where he argued that the information he shared in the Signal chat did not require classification.
In a statement issued ahead of the report's public release, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the findings showed Hegseth did nothing wrong.
"The Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along — no classified information was shared. This matter is resolved, and the case is closed," Parnell said.
NPR disclosure: Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation.
Sam Gringlas, Gabriel Sanchez and Deirdre Walsh contributed reporting.
Copyright 2025 NPR
