Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Defense Department is reviewing video of several Sept. 2 strikes against an alleged drug-smuggling boat off Venezuela to decide whether it can be made public.
Lawmakers have pressed for the footage amid growing scrutiny of the operation and the decisions that led to it. Hegseth said national security officials must first assess whether releasing the video would jeopardize ongoing missions. “We’ve got operators out there doing this right now, so whatever we were to decide to release, we would have to be very responsible about, so we’re reviewing that right now,” he said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
President Trump has said he would be willing to release the full video but acknowledged he did not know its contents. Critics from both parties have expressed frustration that the administration carried out a campaign of boat strikes in the Caribbean without seeking Congressional approval. In the Sept. 2 incident, the military carried out a second strike on several crew members who survived the initial attack, drawing criticism that people who no longer posed a threat were killed. Hegseth has said he authorized the first strike and that Adm. Frank M. Bradley approved the second.
Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, viewed the video in a briefing with Bradley and told CBS’s Face the Nation that Americans deserve to see how such operations are conducted. “There’s a certain amount of sympathy out there for going after drug runners,” he said, but people should see “what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under.”
Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah told CNN’s State of the Union he would “err on the side of transparency” regarding release of the footage, saying public access to facts helps restore trust in government.
The administration has taken a tough stance toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of complicity in drug trafficking. Venezuela has criticized U.S. military activity in the region; AFP reported the Venezuelan army recently swore in 5,600 new soldiers as the country faces increased pressure from the United States.
Despite the controversy, Hegseth and other Trump administration officials have defended the Caribbean boat-strike campaign as necessary to protect U.S. interests. “President Trump can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation’s interests,” Hegseth said. “Let no country on earth doubt that for a moment.”
