GOP senator: Hegseth is either lying about second boat strike or incompetent

By Morgan Rimmer, Arlette Saenz, Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of either lying in his public response to news reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug boat in September or being incompetent.

“Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the White House are saying it did happen,” Paul told reporters in the US Capitol. “So, either he was lying to us … or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”

“Do we think there’s any chance that … the secretary of the defense did not know there had been a second strike? So as a country, we’re just going to let people lie to us, to our face?” he added.

Asked by CNN which comments from Hegseth he was specifically referring to, Paul described a Friday X post from the defense secretary. While Hegseth did not explicitly deny in the post that a follow-up strike had occurred, he dismissed the news reports as “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting” from the “fake news.”

Hegseth has appeared to shift primary responsibility for the US strikes on alleged drug boats to Admiral Mitch Bradley, but said in a Monday X post that he stands by Bradley and the “combat decisions he has made” in regard to the strikes.

The Pentagon pointed to both X posts in response to a CNN request for comment.

Hegseth’s role in the so-called double-tap strike has received intense scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and military legal experts who have raised concerns over the legality of the strike and the potential of war crimes.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday neither he nor Hegseth knew about the follow-up strike. And Hegseth said that strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean have “only just begun.”

Paul, who has cosponsored resolutions to block unauthorized military action in the Caribbean and in Venezuela, added that it seemed like Hegseth is trying to “pin the blame” on Bradley.

“I don’t like to see political figures pointing their finger at military figures. Military people take orders. And there’s a question about, you know, when they don’t take orders, whether things are legal or not legal, but in this sense, it looks to me like they’re trying to pin the blame on somebody else and not them,” Paul said.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal agreed. “Ultimately, Hegseth trying to shift the blame and make Admiral Bradley the fall guy ought to be reason to ask for his resignation or fire him. He should be gone,” he said.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly also expressed concern about the White House placing the blame on Bradley. “How about that for leadership?” said Kelly. “Throw the people underneath you under the bus.”

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis told CNN that whoever was responsible for ordering the second boat strike needs to be held accountable.

“You don’t have to have served in the military to understand that that was a violation of ethical, moral and legal code. And so, if the facts play out the way they’re currently being reported, then somebody needs to get the hell out of Washington,” he said. “Whoever that is, is the person who made the decision and we can be connived that it was isolated to that one person. Anybody in the chain of command that was responsible for it, that had vision of it, needs to be held accountable.”

Kelly said Bradley has a “stellar reputation” and argued any decision to carry out a “double-tap” strike stems from a culture fostered by Trump and Hegseth.

“This is the kind of thing that happens when you have a president who says we’re going to go out and kill people. It’s not what presidents normally say,” said Kelly. “And when you have an unqualified secretary of defense, a guy who has basically zero qualifications for this job that runs around on a stage you know, talking about lethality and warrior ethos and killing people, and we’re going to hunt and kill people.”

“They have set the environment for stuff like this to happen,” he added.

CNN previously reported that, before the operation, Hegseth ordered the military to ensure the strike killed everyone on board, but it’s not clear whether he knew there were survivors before the second strike, according to a source.

Paul would not say if he has confidence in Hegseth’s ability to serve as defense secretary, instead replying that he is “very concerned.” He also noted that he believes the administration is purposefully not including him in briefings due to his opposition to their actions.

“I’ve been offered no briefings, and I think that’s purposeful, because I’ve been skeptical of this. So, no briefings have been offered to me. We are asking for them. We are supportive of the Armed Services Committee looking into this. But this has been very selective in briefings that have been given to people, primarily given to people who are already apologists for the administration,” said Paul.

On Tuesday, Paul and a group of Democratic senators said in a joint statement that if the US military strikes Venezuela, they will call up a War Powers resolution to block the use of US forces in hostilities against the country.

The Kentucky Republican added that he thinks more Republicans are “coming around to being concerned,” with the Pentagon’s actions in the Caribbean, adding that the follow up strike is “what unifies people.”

“When you have Lindsey Graham, the Wall Street Journal and other Republicans saying that the second strike, bombing people who are shipwrecked or clinging to wreckage, that that would be illegal, in the words of people who are very supportive of what the president is doing, that’s a whole new scenario,” he said. “So, I think we’ve entered into uncharted territory here. I think there’s a broad consensus that it’s illegal to kill people who are clinging to wreckage.”

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that lawmakers need more information.

“We have to make a judgment whether this operation is legal – not just the individual strikes, but the whole operation. And then of course the attention is now being focused on one of the strikes and the possibility of criminal activity,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash.

“I’m very suspicious that they’ve never shared that tape with us and that they are consciously trying to cover up what took place,” he added Tuesday on “Inside Politics.” “I think there are serious issues of legality.”

Paul also said that he received a letter back from the Coast Guard on Tuesday saying that 21% of boarded boats don’t have drugs on them, and he argued that it undercuts the motivation for striking the boats at all. Paul later posted the full letter from the Coast Guard on X.

GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno disagreed, arguing that the administration is well within their rights to order a follow-up strike. “This is wartime,” he said, though there has been no declaration of war or authorization for use of military force.

“I think what happened is this is framed as some sort of street drug dealer. These are people that are purposely and intentionally sending poison to kill American citizens, and finally, we’re fighting back,” he said.

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CNN’s DJ Judd and Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.