Lawmakers pressed Bradley for a “considerable period of time” on the obviously incapacitated nature of the two men, Smith says. And the response was deeply unnerving. “The broader assumption that they were operating off of was that the drugs could still conceivably be on that boat, even though you could not see them,” Smith said, “and it was still conceivable that these two people were going to continue on their mission of transmitting those drugs.”
To be clear on what this means: The underlying claim by Trump and the administration is that all of the more than 80 people killed on these boats are waging war against the United States. They are “narco-terrorists,” in this designation. But this very idea—that these people are engaged in armed conflict with our country—is itself broadly dismissed by most legal experts. They should be subject to police action, these experts say, but not summary military execution, and Trump has effectively granted himself the power to execute civilians in international waters.
Yet here it gets even worse. The laws of war generally prohibit the killing of people who are no longer “in the fight” in any meaningful sense, specifically including the shipwrecked. But these lawmakers were told in the closed-door briefing that the two men were still deemed to be “in the fight” by virtue of the fact that there could have been still-transmittable drugs in the capsized and wrecked boat, Smith says. And that those two men sitting atop the wreckage could have continued with their delivery of them.
“The evidence that I’ve seen absolutely demands a further and continued investigation,” Smith told me. “It strains credibility to say that they were still in the fight.”
This badly undermines the story Hegseth has told. He has said that he did not see the two men before the second strike was ordered, suggesting both that he’d gone off to do other things and that the “fog of war” had prevented a clear viewing of the two men.
Obviously what these lawmakers saw contradicts the latter suggestion: The two men were, in Smith’s telling, very visible, so the “fog of war” line appears to be nonsense. And Hegseth’s implication that the strike was justified due to confusion about the men’s status also appears to be in profound doubt.
Republicans who have seen the video have insisted this was all lawful. Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, said it showed the two survivors attempting to flip a boat “loaded with drugs bound for the United States.” But if Smith’s account of the video is correct, that’s in doubt: The boat looked incapacitated, and the drugs weren’t in fact visible.
The military officials stressed in the briefing that Hegseth never directly ordered them to “kill them all,” meaning all the people on board, something that was implied by Washington Post reporting and that Hegseth denied to Trump. And they confirmed that Hegseth didn’t give the direct order for the second strike, Smith says.
But they did say that Hegseth’s declared mission was to kill all 11 people, Smith notes. “It was, ‘Destroy the drugs, kill all 11 people on board,’” Smith told me. “It is not that inaccurate to say that the rules of engagement from Hegseth were, ‘Kill all 11 people on that boat.’” And so, by all indications, that second strike appears to have been ordered to comply with Hegseth’s command.
Smith did confirm that he’s “somewhat satisfied” by the intelligence he saw that the boat originally did have drugs on it. But again, the idea that any of these people, even if they were trafficking drugs, are “in the fight”—in the sense of waging war against the United States—is already indefensible to begin with.
“They have an unbelievably broad definition of what ‘the fight’ is,” Smith said, and in that context, the order to kill all 11 people on the boat, no matter what, looks even worse: “It’s bad.”
Another Democrat, Representative Jim Himes, seconds this interpretation. “You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States,” he said.
Importantly, Smith told me that he and others urged military officials to release the video. “I think that video should be public,” Smith said, adding that he also wants to see the much-discussed legal memo supposedly authorizing the strikes released as well. But the military officials said public release isn’t their call. So now the pressure should intensify on Trump and Hegseth to authorize release of both.
There’s also been some discussion of radio communications that the two men may have sent for help. The idea is supposed to be that if they could get assistance, they could get back “in the fight,” meaning they were legit targets. But Smith said the officials confirmed to lawmakers they have no recording of these communications. So this piece of support for the Hegseth-Trump stance may not really exist.
Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer, says the entire operation is illegal but that a full investigation could establish more clearly whether this particular strike deliberately targeted the men or just targeted the boat. From what we’re now learning from Smith and others, it clearly seems like the former.
“Based on the descriptions of lawmakers, it does sound as if the men were shipwrecked, and targeting them would be a war crime,” Finucane told me. “It sounds like the men were the target.” He said the stories being told by Hegseth and others are now falling apart: “None of these narratives withstand scrutiny.”
Greg Sargent is a staff writer at The New Republic and the host of the podcast The Daily Blast. A seasoned political commentator with over two decades of experience, he was a prominent columnist and blogger at The Washington Post from 2010 to 2023 and has worked at Talking Points Memo, New York magazine, and the New York Observer. Greg is also the author of the critically acclaimed book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics.
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