WASHINGTON — The controversy surrounding a U.S. military operation in the Caribbean Sea on September 2 has intensified, as differing accounts emerge regarding the events captured on surveillance video. The operation involved strikes on a vessel suspected of drug trafficking, and the video has become a point of contention between Democrats and Republicans.
Representative Adam Smith, the leading Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who viewed the footage, expressed concerns over the narrative presented by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other Republicans. According to Smith, the video clearly shows that the survivors were not in a position to continue any form of combat. “When the survivors were finally taken out, they weren’t trying to flip the boat over. The boat was clearly incapacitated with only a small portion remaining capsized,” Smith explained. He emphasized that the individuals were unarmed and lacked any communication devices. “Any claim that the drugs had somehow survived that attack is hard, hard to really square with what we saw,” Smith added.
Smith described the video as “deeply disturbing,” reinforcing his view that the survivors posed no threat and were in no position to engage further. This portrayal starkly contrasts with the account provided by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who also reviewed the footage.
Senator Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a different perspective, asserting the legality of the military action. He described seeing “two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight,” suggesting a continued threat.
The debate over the video’s implications continued as Secretary Hegseth shared his understanding of the events on Saturday, although specific details of his recount remain undisclosed. The discrepancy between these narratives underscores the ongoing political tension surrounding U.S. military operations and their oversight.
On Saturday, Hegseth recounted what he had been told about the subsequent strike.
“I was told, ‘hey, there had to be a reattack, because there were a couple folks who could still be in the fight. Access to radios. There was a link up point of another potential boat, drugs were still there. They were actively interacting with them,’” the secretary said at the Reagan National Defense Forum.
Asked by “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos about Hegseth’s comments, Smith said, “That’s ridiculous. There are no radios.”
“They ought to release the video,” Smith said. “If they release the video, then everything that the Republicans are saying will clearly be portrayed to be completely false. And people will get a look at it, and they will see. The boat was adrift. It was going where the current was going to take it, and these two were trying to figure out how to survive.”
President Donald Trump has said the administration would have “no problem” releasing the video of the strike in question, but Hegseth was noncommittal when asked Saturday.
“Whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible about it so we’re reviewing that right now.,” Hegseth said at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “I’m way more interested in protecting that than anything else. So, we’re viewing the process, and we’ll see.”
Smith argued the strike video lawmakers were shown is “no different” than the strike videos the administration has already publicly released.
“It seems pretty clear they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it, because it’s very, very difficult to justify,” he said.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee who has not seen the video, defended the administration in a separate interview on “This Week.”
“The fact is, these cartels now, because the southern border is closed, they’ve gone to the high seas. So President Trump is acting with his core Article II powers. No serious legal expert would doubt that the president has authority to blow narco-terrorists out of the water,” Schmitt said.
The Missouri senator continued, “President Trump has been delegated the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He’s done that. He sent a letter to Congress saying he was going to initiate these strikes. We’ve had regular briefings about it.”
Schmitt argued the criticism from Democrats amounts to “politics and trying to take out Secretary Hegseth.”
On Saturday, Hegseth said designating cartels as terrorist organizations makes them a “target” just like al-Qaida. But the legality of the entire operation targeting these vessels has been a central debate, and legal experts have questioned the administration’s justification.
“If you say anyone who has drugs that they’re intending to illegally transit to the U.S. is a legitimate target for deadly force, the amount of power that gives the president and the U.S. military is unprecedented, and something that ought to be concerning to all of the American people,” Smith, the top Armed Services Democrat, said on “This Week.”
Schmitt, however, insisted the strikes are legal.
“They’re completely authorized. I reviewed the 40-plus page memo by the Office of Legal Counsel. There’s [Judge Advocates General] officers in these rooms, George, every time there’s a strike,” Schmitt said.
The opinion by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has not been made public. Democrats have called for it to be released.
Trump’s pardon of Honduran ex-president
Schmitt was also asked about Trump’s decision to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who was serving a 45-year sentence in the United States on multiple counts of drug and weapons trafficking in 2024.
“Do you support this pardon of the former Honduran president?” Stephanopoulos asked Schmitt.
“I’m not familiar with the facts or circumstances, but I think what’s telling here is to try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on, on drug smuggling is just ridiculous,” Schmitt said. “It’s totally ridiculous. He’s the – he’s provided border security like we’ve never seen before.”
But pressed by Stephanopoulos on whether he supported the pardon, Schmitt said that the discussion about Hernandez was a distraction from the administration’s military campaign against alleged drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
“What we’re talking about here are the narco-terrorists poisoning Americans,” Schmitt said. “This attempt to try to focus on a pardon is classic because you’ve lost the debate now on the narco-terrorist question.”
But Smith said that he believed the pardon was part of the administration’s bid to exert additional control on South American politics.
“It’s more about what Trump released with their national security strategy a couple days ago, three days ago now, where he wants to assert dominance over the Western hemisphere,” Smith said.
“The Honduras thing seems to have to do with the presidential election that’s going on down there and the party that supports Trump or the party that doesn’t support Trump,” he added. “So, it seems to be much more about that than any legitimate desire to stop what, by the way, is a huge problem; drugs in the U.S. are a huge problem.”
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