Congress is using the Pentagon’s travel budget as leverage to force Secretary of War Pete Hegseth into giving lawmakers unedited video of strikes that destroyed narco terrorist boats.
A Sept. 2 incident has become controversial after a report in The Washington Post alleged Hegseth gave an order to kill everyone aboard, even after it was clear that some individuals survived the first strike. However, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley on Thursday reportedly told members of Congress during a closed-door briefing the second strike was justified and that he, not Hegseth, authorized it.
Language tucked into the Department of War’s budget bill would withhold a quarter of the Pentagon’s travel budget unless Hegseth does as lawmakers want, according to Politico.
The bill, which Politico said is expected to be approved as written, would require the unedited videos to be shared with members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
Although Bradley and Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Caine last week showed top lawmakers the unedited video of the Sept. 2 incident, there was no consensus on what it showed. Many Republicans said it backed up what the Pentagon said; Democrats said it did not.
The budget language also demands that all overdue reports be delivered to Congress, including lessons learned from the Ukraine war, before the travel funds will be released.
Trump has said he has no problem with releasing the videos, but on Saturday, Hegseth was less supportive of the idea.
“We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see,” Hegseth said of potentially releasing the video, according to The New York Times.
Hegseth he wanted to protect the “sources and methods” by which the video was taken amid an “ongoing operation” in the Caribbean.
Hegseth on Saturday again denied the Post’s allegations
“It’s just patently ridiculous,” he said. “It’s meant to create a cartoon of me and the decisions we make, and how we make them.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the video did not show any misconduct, according to ABC.
Cotton said he “saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight.”
Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri said Democrats attacks are nothing more than “politics and trying to take out Secretary Hegseth.”
Democrats have been demanding the unedited video, according to Axios.
“We write to request that you release all audio and video footage from the kinetic strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean on September 2, 2025, including the follow-on strikes,” the letter signed by 19 of the House Armed Services Committee’s Democrats said. No Republicans signed the letter.
“Our concern stems from reports that you, as Secretary of Defense, issued an order to ‘kill everybody,’ followed by additional strikes seeking to kill the two remaining unarmed, shipwrecked individuals,” the letter said.
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