Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced backlash after declaring the Pentagon had “absolute and complete authority” to bomb a suspected Venezuelan drug vessel, but then offering no legal basis to back up that claim about the Donald Trump-ordered deadly strike that killed 11 people.
A reporter pressed Hegseth on Thursday: “What legal authority did the Pentagon invoke to strike that boat full of drug smugglers?”
Hegseth shot back: “We have the absolute and complete authority to conduct that.”
But he did not cite any law or mechanism granting such authority.
“First of all, just the defense of the American people alone. A hundred thousand Americans were killed each year under the previous administration because of an open border and open drug traffic flow. That is an assault on the American people. I’d say we smoked a drug boat and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean and when other people try to do that, they’re gonna meet the same fate.”
Fox News shared footage of the exchange online:
Trump himself announced he ordered the strike on the boat, claiming the targets were members of the Venezuelan drug cartel Tren de Aragua, which his administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization in February.
The bombing has sparked criticism even from Republicans.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, warned Wednesday that the move may set a chilling precedent.
“It’s hard to have any sympathy for drug dealers trying to import product into our country,” Paul said on Newsmax. “But at the same time, I guess, you might ask the question, ‘Where does it end? Are we the world’s policemen?’”
He added: “We all assume these people were bad people and drug dealers, but if they were caught off the coast of Miami, we would stop the boat. If they don’t shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them. They’re confiscated; they’re put in jail.”
On social media, critics accused Hegseth of swerving the question entirely — and questioned what actual authority the Pentagon was relying on.