President Donald Trump’s attempt to clean up the political firestorm surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday only deepened the crisis, as a string of contradictory statements left viewers convinced the president was quietly distancing himself from the most explosive allegation in the Caribbean boat strike scandal.
During an airborne press gaggle aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked — directly and repeatedly — whether he believed reporting that Hegseth issued a spoken order to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected drug-smuggling vessel on Sept. 2, including two survivors who were shown on drone video clinging to the wreckage after the initial strike.
Trump’s first instinct was to distance himself from the entire episode — and to lean hard on Hegseth’s denial.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said. “He said he did not say that, and I believe him 100 percent.”
When a reporter followed up and asked if he would be “OK” with a second strike that killed survivors, Trump again tried to duck responsibility by pointing back to Hegseth. “He said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision.”
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But it was what he said next that set off alarms.
Pressed again about the alleged follow-up strike, Trump added, “Number one, I don’t know that that happened… we’ll look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal, it was fine, and if there were two people around… but Pete said that didn’t happen. I have great confidence in him.”
Later in the same gaggle, he repeated that he was relying on Hegseth’s word. “I’m going to find out about it, but Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”
For many viewers, that “I wouldn’t have wanted… not a second strike” line was the tell.
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“So Trump now says he ‘would never have approved’ that second strike in the Caribbean — while he says Pete Hegseth denies it happened and that ‘He believes him,’” one Threads user wrote. “Is this Trump giving himself cover — and setting up Hegseth to take the fall if things go sideways?”
Another critic sketched out what they think comes next, “Pete Hegseth is going to say he never authorized it. Whoever was in charge of that ship will get the blame, get court-martialed, and go to jail.”
Others zeroed in on the way Trump tried to have it both ways — claiming ignorance in one breath and knowledge in the next. “He didn’t know anything about it, then in the next breath says, ‘Hegseth said he didn’t do it.’ So he did know about it,” one commenter wrote.
“That’s what his minions don’t understand,” another added. “He may be immune, but they aren’t. He will throw them all under the bus to save his own ass. Even his own kids.”
Hegseth, for his part, has doubled down in the opposite direction. After the Post’s initial bombshell, he dismissed the story as “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory,” insisting the campaign of strikes on alleged drug boats are “lethal, kinetic” attacks aimed at “narco-terrorists” and fully lawful.
Then he poured gasoline on the outrage by posting a twisted parody of the beloved children’s character Franklin the Turtle — retitled “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists” and depicting Franklin firing a missile from a helicopter at an exploding boat — with the caption, “For your Christmas wish list…”
To critics already horrified by the allegation that survivors were deliberately killed in the water, the cartoon looked less like a show of strength and more like mockery.
“Trump is getting ready to throw Pete Hegseth under the bus and blame him for their alleged war crimes and I don’t think Pete Hegseth knows it yet,” one liberal commentator warned in a viral video, pointing to Hegseth’s cartoon post.
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“Once these investigations ramp up and things get real, I have a feeling that Pete will get the Donald Trump treatment — getting thrown under the bus, blamed, and discarded.”
All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of mounting legal and political pressure over the September boat attack itself.
According to The Washington Post, Hegseth’s spoken directive before the strike was that “the order was to kill everybody,” and a Special Operations commander ordered a second missile after seeing two survivors clinging to the wreckage, to comply with that instruction.
Former military lawyer Todd Huntley told the Post that, without a legal basis for war, “killing any of the men in the boats amounts to murder,” and that ordering the killing of incapacitated survivors would amount to “a war crime.”
A group of former military lawyers and senior commanders known as the Former JAGs Working Group has likewise warned that, under the facts reported, “violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options.”
Members of both parties on Capitol Hill are now treating the incident as potentially criminal. Sen. Tim Kaine said that, if the reporting is accurate, it would be “a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws,” rising “to the level of a war crime.” Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, agreed that such an order “would be an illegal act.”
Republican-led committees in both the House and Senate have announced “vigorous oversight” and demanded the orders, recordings, and legal rationale behind the strikes.
Inside the White House, officials are lashing out at the reporting. Communications director Steven Cheung blasted the Post as “The Washington Compost,” claiming on X that it had provided “NO FACTS and NO SUBSTANTIATION” and had “literally just printed what some unnamed random person said and reported it as fact.”
But for many watching Trump’s halting defense of Hegseth, the damage is already done — not just to Hegseth, but to Trump’s own claims that everything about the Caribbean campaign has been above board.
“The first strike was very lethal, it was fine,” Trump said, drawing a line in the sand he clearly hoped would protect himself.
