Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came under scrutiny Thursday on two separate fronts: a Sept. 2 Caribbean strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel and a Pentagon inspector general finding that he used the encrypted messaging app Signal on his personal phone to discuss planned strikes in Yemen.
Members of the House and Senate attended closed-door briefings with Navy Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the Special Operations commander who oversaw the Caribbean operation, and were shown video of the strike. The footage prompted sharply different reactions. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) called the video “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” saying it appeared to show two people “in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States.” Himes pointed to the Defense Department’s manual on the laws of armed conflict, which lists attacking a shipwreck as an example of an impermissible action.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who also viewed the footage, disputed that interpretation. Cotton said the video showed two survivors attempting to flip a boat loaded with drugs back over so they could continue, described multiple strikes “minutes apart,” and called the actions “entirely lawful,” saying he did not find the footage disturbing. Both Cotton and Himes reported that Bradley told lawmakers he had not been ordered to kill everyone on board.
Lawmakers including Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said they still have “serious questions about the legality of all the strikes” and urged more transparency. Reed warned that failing to strictly observe the laws of war jeopardizes servicemembers and undermines U.S. moral authority. Several Democrats pressed the White House to release the full strike video.
President Trump said he was not aware of a second strike and that he would be willing to release footage, though he added he did not know what had been recorded. He defended the larger campaign against narcotics trafficking, asserting that disrupting shipments saves American lives, and saying, “Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives.” Hegseth said he authorized the initial strike but denied ordering any subsequent strikes, defended the decision to sink the vessel and Bradley’s actions, and said, “I watched that first strike live.” In a remark reported during a Cabinet meeting, he quipped about his busy schedule: “As you can imagine, the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I moved on to my next meeting.”
Separately, the Pentagon inspector general released an 84-page report finding that Hegseth violated agency policy by using the commercially available encrypted app Signal on his personal phone to share details about planned U.S. strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The probe, led by Inspector General Steven Stebbins, was launched after bipartisan requests from the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and followed reporting that a journalist had been inadvertently added to a Signal group where senior officials discussed strike plans.
The report concluded that Hegseth transmitted nonpublic Department of Defense information—identifying aircraft numbers and strike times for manned U.S. aircraft operating over hostile territory—over an unapproved, unsecured network roughly two to four hours before the strikes. Investigators said using a personal device and Signal risked compromising sensitive information and could have endangered personnel and mission objectives.
Hegseth declined to be interviewed for the investigation and submitted a written statement arguing the material he shared did not require classification. Ahead of the report’s release, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell characterized the findings as a “TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth” and maintained that no classified information was shared.
Disclosure: Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation.
Reporting contributions: Sam Gringlas, Gabriel Sanchez and Deirdre Walsh.