White House Finds Perfect Scapegoat for Second Drug Boat Strike

The Trump administration is shifting blame for the “kill everybody” order behind a second strike order on an alleged drug boat, killing all survivors, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Commander Frank “Mitch” Bradley.

“In his social media posts, Secretary Hegseth didn’t go into details about that strike, he just said U.S. operations in the area were lawful, and he said that the story and media reports were fabricated,” a reporter said to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at her Monday briefing. “Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?”

“The latter is true, and I have a statement to read for you here,” Leavitt replied before reading off a statement. “With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed, and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

This is the first time the White House is confirming a Washington Post report from Friday detailing an order that could be considered a war crime.

“The critical thing here is that Leavitt is distancing Hegseth from the final act of delivering the ultimate order for the strike that killed the two men in the water,” The New Republic’s Greg Sargent wrote. “She only acknowledges that Hegseth directed the initial destroying of the boat.”

The timing is impeccable: Republican House and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairs Mike Rogers and Roger Wicker—along with congressional Democrats—are moving to have Bradley in for a classified briefing to clear up exactly what happened.

The U.S. government’s September 2 attack on a boat off the coast of Trinidad, the first of dozens of strikes on what the Trump administration has claimed are drug-trafficking vessels, is drawing increased scrutiny after reports that an immediate, second missile strike was ordered to kill survivors.

ABC News reporter Rachel Scott asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a Monday briefing whether the Pentagon’s policy had changed, noting that in a subsequent October Caribbean Sea airstrike, survivors were rescued instead of targeted.

“Was there a decision to handle survivors differently after these airstrikes?” Scott asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Leavitt replied.

The answer is chilling, as it doesn’t clear up anything about what policy or legal method governs the airstrikes, which have continued for nearly three months. According to a Washington Post article, which Scott referenced in her question, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made the order to kill everybody in the September airstrike, which the White House denies.

The Trump administration’s legal justifications for striking boats in the waters around Central America have repeatedly been questioned by Democratic and Republican members of Congress, foreign governments, and the United Nations. The Defense Department’s own Law of War Manual prohibits declaring “no quarter” or conducting operations “on the basis that there shall be no survivors.”

As officials admit that they have no idea who is even being killed, the Trump administration continues launching airstrikes with impunity. At the same time, the airstrikes seem to be a precursor for war, with 14 percent of the U.S. Navy fleet already dispatched to the region. Alleged war crimes are becoming the norm in this yet-to-be-declared war.

The White House is still trying to defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “no survivors” approach to bombing small boats in the Caribbean.

A live drone feed revealed that the Pentagon mercilessly attacked two people who clung to the wreckage of an airstrike on September 2 in order to comply with the Pentagon chief’s orders to “kill everybody” at the scene, The Washington Post reported over the weekend.

News of the administration’s ruthlessness ruffled feathers across Washington. GOP-led panels in the House and Senate announced that they would dial up their scrutiny of the Pentagon, while Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was choosing to believe Hegseth, who claimed he did not “order the death of those two men.”

But the cover-up was still alive and well back at the White House on Monday, where press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that one of Hegseth’s subordinates was the one truly responsible for the second airstrike.

“Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?” asked a reporter, quoting one of Hegseth’s reports in which he claimed that the entire story about the attack had been fabricated.

“The latter is true,” Leavitt said. “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narcoterrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war.”

“With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” she added.

The attacks have been condemned by U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and foreign human advocates alike, including the United Nations’ human rights chief, who said in October that the strikes “violate international human rights law.”

The White House has insisted the violence is justified, broadly accusing the boats of trafficking narcotics to the U.S. from Venezuela and Colombia, though U.S. lawmakers have been more than skeptical—particularly since several of the boats were thousands of miles away in international waters and since the attacks were conducted without prior investigations or interdiction. Pentagon officials reportedly haven’t been concerned with identifying the people on the boats before attacking.

Trump’s careless killing spree has so far killed at least 83 people aboard the tiny watercraft. It has also rallied tens of thousands of Venezuelans in favor of war against the United States.

Trump has attempted to use the attacks to shove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power, something that he tried and failed to do in 2019.

But despite the justifications, Leavitt had no additional details to offer when she was asked to clarify Monday whether the administration was aware that the ship hit on September 2 had survivors aboard.

“Why won’t the administration either confirm or deny or reveal whether or not there were survivors after that initial first strike? And what imminent threat would survivors pose who were clinging presumably to the wreckage of that boat?” a reporter pressed.

“Again, as I’ve said, I think you guys are not listening fully to the statement I provided,” Leavitt responded. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was totally destroyed and the threat to the narcoterrorists—to the United States—was eliminated.”

The White House mouthpiece then told the room of journalists to redirect their questions to the Department of Defense, adding that she “obviously wasn’t in the room” when the decision was made.

President Trump dedicated part of his day Monday to attacking Tennessee Democratic House candidate Aftyn Behn, only further confirming that the GOP is desperate for wins it limps into 2026.

Last week, an Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of the special election had Behn just behind Republican candidate Matt Van Epps, 46 percent to 48 percent—with 2 percent voting elsewhere and 5 percent undecided. A victory for Behn would be a massive upset to a Republican House majority already on its last legs in the wake of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation announcement—and the impending resignations of various others.

“We have to win this seat. We’ve gotten you the largest tax cuts in history, and the new bill—the Great Big Beautiful Bill—kicks in, as you know, on January 1. It hasn’t even kicked in yet,” Trump told a Van Epps rally while on House Leader Mike Johnson’s speaker phone. “Number one, [Behn] hates Christianity, number two, she hates country music. How the hell can you elect a person like that? … It’s a big vote, and it’s gonna show something. It’s gonna show that the Republican Party is stronger than it’s ever been.”

The president also noted that he’d be doing a telerally for Van Epps on Monday night.

The narrative that Behn “hates Christianity” is one of many falsities that the GOP has pushed in a race where more than $3.3 million has been spent against her. Behn has mentioned that she disapproves of religions being “at the core of everything we do in the legislature” but has never said anything close to what Trump claimed.

Many also noted the urgency that Trump spoke with.

“‘The whole world is watching,’ President Trump says of tomorrow’s special election for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district—which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024,” USA Today’s Joey Garrison wrote.

The special election is on Tuesday. .

A recent series of polls are signaling disaster for President Donald Trump’s hopes of carrying the Republican Party through the 2026 midterm elections.

CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten on Monday discussed several different polls that found that Trump had hit an approval low for his second term.

Enten cited a recent Gallup poll that saw Trump’s net approval rating sink to -24 percent from -1 percent in January. “We’re talking about a drop of over 20 points in the wrong direction for the president of the United States,” the analyst said.

The only president who was less popular than Trump at this point in his second term? Richard Nixon, who had an approval rating of -36 points just a few months before he resigned from office. “Anywhere you look this is the second-worst for a president of either party in their second term dating all the way back since the 1940s,” Enten said.

Since the 1940s, Enten said, no president has successfully increased their approval rating by more than five points between this point in their second term and the midterm elections. Unless Trump can “break history,” he can say, “‘See you later!’ to that Republican majority,” Enten cried.

To be sure, Trump’s approval rating is expected to have an outsize impact on Republicans’ performance in next year’s midterm elections. In November’s off-cycle elections, as in 2018 and 2020, voters who disapproved of Trump’s performance in the White House supported the other party’s candidates at a higher rate than for any other recent president, according to CNN.

As Enten pointed out, Trump has garnered a negative net approval rating across several recent polls. The Gallup poll, conducted from November 3 to 25, found that the president’s approval rating had fallen to 36 percent, approaching his all-time low approval rating of just 34 percent after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.

Another poll by the American Research Group found that Trump’s net approval rating was -27 percent, and another sponsored by Fox News placed him at just -17 percent. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that he had a net approval rating of -22 percent, thanks to the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and high consumer prices.

The Afghan refugee accused of shooting two National Guard members Wednesday used to serve in a CIA-backed military unit, and felt abandoned by the agency, Rolling Stone reports.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal served in the “Zero Units,” a paramilitary unit in Afghanistan led by the CIA and trained by U.S. special operations soldiers. After the Taliban returned to power in the country in 2021, Lakanwal came to the United States with his wife and five sons, settling in Bellingham, Washington.

Lakanwal’s move to the U.S. was helped by Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration initiative to help resettle Afghans fleeing the new regime, especially those who had worked with U.S. personnel and could be in danger from the Taliban. Lakanwal struggled in his new life, though.

Despite receiving asylum and work authorization from the Trump administration, he was fired from a laundromat job because he didn’t have a work authorization card, a fellow member of his unit told the magazine. Lakanwal’s nephew also wrote a letter to the Bellingham housing authority asking to move the family closer to an Afghan community, citing a physical attack on his uncle that required hospital treatment.

The letter noted that Lakanwal was isolated, lacked English skills, and would benefit from being in a larger area like Seattle where he could easily find work. More than one month ago, Lakanwal reportedly told his unit mate that his missing paperwork meant that he couldn’t get a job, leaving his family unable to afford food or a place to rent.

As a result, Lakanwal had to borrow money from friends and other unit members, breaking down in tears when speaking to his unit mate. In June, Lakanwal reached out to a CIA program meant to aid Zero Unit veterans with their immigration issues. Rolling Stone saw a screenshot of a group chat where unit members shared their issues with an agency representative, including Lakanwal, who repeatedly asked for help.

Lakanwal’s last post was unanswered and deleted by the group’s administrator. When the magazine contacted the CIA representative, they claimed it was a wrong number. The agency did not respond to the magazine’s request for a comment.

All of this must not have helped Lakanwal’s mental health. Other reports say that he spent weeks at a time isolated in a dark room and would suffer “manic episodes,” according to a case worker who helped with his family’s relocation. During these episodes, which could last weeks, Lakanwal would make cross-country drives by himself.

After last week’s shooting, which killed one National Guard member and hospitalized another, the Trump administration has used the incident to attack immigration and refugee asylum policies, claiming that Lakanwal was not properly vetted, despite the administration’s approving his asylum claim in April.

Its claim belies the fact that Lakanwal worked directly with U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in a select unit that required extreme vetting and a probationary period. Zero Unit veterans were also vetted upon arrival in the U.S. before getting Special Immigrant Visas, meant for Iraqis and Afghans who aided the U.S. government.

Lakanwal may have been suffering from PTSD and feeling frozen out by the U.S. government, an unfortunately common problem affecting military veterans. He also couldn’t work thanks to missing immigration paperwork, a problem exacerbated by the Trump administration’s wholescale gutting of the federal government. If he had gotten the help he was seeking, who knows if last week’s tragedy could have been averted.

President Donald Trump offered up a truly nonsensical rationale for his latest presidential pardon.

While traveling on Air Force One Sunday, Trump was asked about his decision to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison on drug trafficking and weapons charges.

“You’ve made so clear how you want to keep drugs out of the U.S., can you say more about why you would pardon a notorious drug trafficker?” asked one reporter.

“Well, I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Trump replied. It was not a particularly comforting response after the president previously revealed he has no idea who he’s pardoning. After the reporter clarified that she was asking about Hernández, Trump scrambled to justify his decision.

“Well, I was told—I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup—I don’t mean Biden, look, Biden didn’t know he was alive—but it was the people that surround the Resolute Desk. Surround Biden, when he was there, which was about very little time,” Trump ranted.

“The people of Honduras really thought he was set up and it was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration setup. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”

“What evidence can you share that he was set up and that he wasn’t—?” the reporter asked, before being interrupted by Trump, who had no such evidence to share.

“Well, you take a look. I mean, they could say that you take any country you want; if somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life,” Trump babbled. “And that includes this country, OK?”

But Hernández wasn’t imprisoned simply for being the president of Honduras. In 2021, U.S. federal prosecutors presented an array of evidence connecting the former foreign leader to the drug-trafficking activities of his brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez Alvarado, who was sentenced to life in prison for importing at least 185,000 kilograms of cocaine, securing bribes to public officials, as well as other weapons and false statement offenses. Prosecutors had described the former president as being involved in a “violent, state-sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy.”

Trump pardoned Hernández on the eve of Honduras’s presidential election, in which the U.S. president has endorsed Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a former sportscaster and candidate from the conservative National Party. While it’s unclear what Trump’s exact reasoning is—considering that he had no evidence to back up his claims of a “setup”—it’s possible that pardoning the ex-president may have been an attempt to fire up the conservative voting base on Election Day.

Donald Trump issued a cryptic message regarding his White House ballroom project, promising online that the 90,000-square-foot project would be done “right.”

The president referred to the construction zone as the “presidential ballroom” in a Truth Social post Sunday, insisting—again—that it would be funded entirely by private donations. But then he made note of a curious detail.

“It is something that has been needed and desired at the White House for over 150 years, but something which no other President was equipped to do—But I am, and as long as we are going to do it, we are going to do it RIGHT,” Trump wrote. “It will be a magnificent addition to the White House, the most important since the building of the West Wing!”

The comment comes days after news broke that Trump has been feuding with his architect, James McCrery II, who reportedly doesn’t see eye to eye with him on the ballroom’s proposed size.

Insiders told The Washington Post last week that McCrery has argued the 90,000-square-foot blueprint would overshadow the 55,000-square-foot White House mansion, violating basic architectural principles in the process.

After promising Americans in July that his proposed ballroom would “be near but not touching” the White House East Wing, Trump completely razed the FDR-era extension in October, plowing forward without prerequisite approval from the National Capital Planning Commission or the express permission of Congress. Conveniently, Trump started demolition during the government shutdown, when the NCPC was consequently closed.

The Trump administration said that the forthcoming 90,000-square-foot event space will be capable of hosting 650 people, a 200-person bump from current maximum seating at the White House East Wing. But real estate experts have since pointed out that the possibilities of that square footage should be much broader, considering a space of that size will be roughly equivalent to two football fields.

The project’s price tag also inexplicably grew by 50 percent after Trump began tearing down the East Wing. What Trump had originally pitched as a $200 million project was instead referred to in late October as a $300 million development plan. The White House suggested that the project would be funded, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

Some major players in the defense industry with massive federal contracts, including Lockheed Martin and Palantir, have also forked over significant cash to develop the ballroom, though it’s unclear what they would get out of building a venue designed for dancing.

The president’s crass mouth is losing him Republican support in Indiana.

State Senator Michael Bohacek announced Friday that he would no longer support Donald Trump’s efforts to redistrict the Hoosier State, claiming that the president’s recent decision to call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded” had put him off the MAGA leader’s plan.

“I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter,” Bohacek said in a statement. “Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome.

“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” he continued. “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

Anxious about the 2026 midterms, Trump has issued directives to several red states, including Indiana, to redraw their congressional maps in order to bolster Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House.

The unprecedented long-shot effort would win Indiana just two more seats in the U.S. House—but state senators have already signaled that they have no intentions of reshaping the state to aid the president’s ambitions.

Indiana’s Senate announced late last month that it would not meet until January, indicating that redistricting will not be on the state’s legislative agenda this year.

Public GOP opposition to Trump’s offensive nature could be an indicator that his white-knuckled grip on the caucus is slipping. Trump has issued a litany of repugnant statements about women, people of color, and those with disabilities, though none of that seemed to seriously sway Republicans away from the MAGA politician before.

Trump infamously mocked a reporter with a disability while on the campaign trail in 2015, imitating the sporadic arm movements of Serge Kovaleski, an investigative reporter with The New York Times who suffers from a congenital joint condition.

FBI Director Kash Patel is so obsessed with maintaining the facade of power and authority that he wouldn’t even get off a plane to investigate the murder of his friend Charlie Kirk until someone got him a special FBI raid jacket—his specific size, and with all the right patches on it. 

A new report from a “National Alliance of Retired and Active Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts” has revealed that Patel—just a day after Kirk had been killed—landed in Utah and refused to exit the plane until someone got him a medium-size FBI raid jacket. He ended up taking a female agent’s jacket. He then began to complain that that jacket didn’t have the proper patches on it, and he refused to leave the plane once again until SWAT team members gave him their patches. 

This report, which has yet to be independently corroborated, comes from someone the group calls ALPHA99, a “reliable, trustworthy, and competent” source. 

The FBI director had just landed at the scene of the murder of someone he claimed was a close friend, and he chose to throw a tantrum because he didn’t have the exact right jacket with the exact right patches, rather than just get off the plane and do his job. 

This is just one of many examples of the floundering FBI head’s misplaced priorities. Just last week, it was reported that President Trump was weighing firing Patel in the wake of his premature social media posts during ongoing cases, his use of a government jet for a date with his 27-year-old girlfriend, and giving said 27-year-old girlfriend a SWAT team for her security detail. 

These sound like things a politician’s teenage son would do, not the head of the FBI. That, and this meltdown over a jacket in the midst of a high-profile assassination–with a suspect who had yet to be charged—only beg more questions about the fitness of the least qualified FBI director in U.S. history.  

Read the full report here.