Hegseth Bragged About Disregarding War Crimes in His Own Book

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice on the rules of engagement in war. 

In his book The War on Warriors, published last year, Hegseth wrote about an instance where he rejected a military judge advocate general’s guidance on the rules of engagement, telling troops, “I will not allow that nonsense to filter into your brains.”

Hegseth wrote that the judge advocate general “used the example of an identified enemy holding a rocket-propelled grenade” and asked Hegseth’s platoon, “Do you shoot at him?”

The former Fox News host said his fellow soldiers replied, “Hell, yeah, we light him up,” to which  the JAG said, “Wrong answer, men.” 

“You are not authorized to fire at that man, until that RPG becomes a threat. It must be pointed at you with the intent to fire. That makes it a legal and proper engagement,” the officer said, according to Hegseth, who wrote that his platoon mates “sat in silence, stunned.”

Hegseth wrote that he pulled the platoon aside after the briefing and told them, “I will not allow that nonsense to filter into your brains. Men, if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat. That’s a bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed. And I will have your back—just like our commander. We are coming home, the enemy will not.”

The passage, reported on by The Guardian Tuesday, is one of many instances in Hegseth’s book in which he complains about rules and regulations governing warfare in the U.S. military. In another passage, Hegseth gripes, “If our warriors are forced to follow rules arbitrarily and asked to sacrifice more lives so that international tribunals feel better about themselves, aren’t we just better off winning our wars according to our own rules?! Who cares what other countries think.”

Throughout the book, Hegseth repeatedly praises his own commander, Colonel Michael Steele, whom he calls a “certified badass,” and who was later reprimanded for reportedly ordering soldiers in 2006 in Iraq to “kill all military age males” in a raid.

All of this takes on new meaning with news this week regarding Hegseth’s actions in the Caribbean Sea. On September 2, following a strike on boats suspected of smuggling drugs to the U.S., Hegseth reportedly ordered an immediate follow-up strike to kill two survivors. A Washington Post report found that Hegseth made an order to kill everybody on the boats, which the White House denies, instead placing the blame on Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley. 

Hegseth’s own words from last year on respecting rules of engagement, as well as international treaties and agreements on war, would seem to suggest that he’d have no problem issuing such an order, which would be a war crime. It would also violate the Defense Department’s own Law of War Manual, which prohibits declaring “no quarter” or conducting operations “on the basis that there shall be no survivors.” Does Hegseth disagree with that as well? 

It seems that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration have decided to throw admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley to the wolves, pinning the order for a second strike on survivors of a boat bombing—which may constitute a war crime—directly on him.

“Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made—on the September 2 mission and all others since,” Hegseth wrote on X Monday evening, making sure to spell out that it was Bradley who made the decisions. “America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this @DeptofWar says we have the back of our warriors—we mean it.”

Hegseth’s cryptic message is the latest installment of the fallout from a September 2 boat bombing that killed nine people. There were two survivors left, and The Washington Post reported that they were bombed after Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody.” Hegseth and the White House have not denied that the potentially criminal order was given but on Monday began to claim that the order came from Bradley, who was the mission’s commander under Hegseth.

Hegseth’s message reads more like him leading Bradley to the gallows than it does a message of support, and the public noticed.

“Let’s be absolutely clear: I stand behind Admiral Bradley, who made this decision and not me,” one user replied to Hegseth, mockingly. “It was the right decision, it was legal, I agree with it 100 times out of 100 and I cannot emphasize enough I had nothing to do with the decision Bradley made on his own, which I support.”

“Hegseth off-loading responsibility while framing it like he’s a Tough Military Dude ‘backing warriors’ or whatever is peak Hegseth: cowardly, scummy, insecure, smarmy, selfish, and soaked in deeply affected rhetoric lifted from 80s action movies,” wrote another. “A total worm.”

Republican House and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairs Mike Rogers and Roger Wicker—along with congressional Democrats—are currently moving to have Bradley in for a classified briefing to hear his side of the story.

FBI Director Kash Patel was already trying to make jokes Monday about a humiliating report that he wouldn’t get off a plane to investigate the murder of his friend Charlie Kirk because he didn’t have the right outfit.

Patel has once again become the object of ridicule following a leaked report that he refused to deboard a plane until someone got him a medium-size FBI raid jacket. He ended up taking a female agent’s jacket but then began to complain that that jacket didn’t have the proper patches on it. He refused to disembark until SWAT team members lent him their patches.

Patel tried Monday to clap back at a dig from California Representative Eric Swalwell.

“I don’t mind that FBI Director Kash Patel had to wear a women’s (size medium) jacket to cosplay as someone in charge. I just wish he’d focus on stopping the rampant domestic terrorism happening on his watch,” Swalwell wrote on X.

Patel replied: “I was looking for a Youth Large.... Domestic terrorism arrests are UP 30% this year—impressive, considering I spent zero days dating a Chinese spy named Fang Fang, where should I send your women’s medium for date night?”

It’s unclear how a Youth Large is more “alpha male” than a women’s medium, but OK.

Patel’s rather juvenile reply referred to a 2020 report that Swalwell was among a group of prominent Bay Area Democrats who had been targeted by a suspected Chinese spy named Christine Fang. Swalwell reportedly cut all ties with Fang in 2015 after U.S. intelligence officials alerted him to her alleged connection to China’s Ministry of State Security. Conservatives still make racist jokes about their supposed relationship.

The leaked internal report that contained details about Patel’s temper tantrum also offered a damning assessment of his leadership at the FBI. Two separate sources described Patel as “in over his head.” Another source said that Patel was “not very good” and “may be insecure.”

It turns out that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth knows all about the circumstances of the America’s September 2 strike on boats in the Caribbean Sea. 

A clip of Hegseth talking the next day about the strike to Fox News in September resurfaced online Monday night. In the clip, Hegseth said he watched the bombing happen live. 

“I can tell you that was definitely not artificial intelligence. I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua, a narco-terrorist organization designated by the United States, trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” Hegseth said. 

Hegseth’s words contradict the Trump administration’s statements after details emerged earlier this week that the U.S. conducted a second strike on September 2 to kill survivors from its initial attack. The administration has attempted to shift blame and responsibility from Hegseth to Commander Frank “Mitch” Bradley. Trump himself claimed Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted that—not a second strike.” 

If indeed the U.S. government conducted a second strike to kill survivors, that would be a war crime—and that’s assuming we are even at war, which Congress has not declared. Will Republicans in Congress demand accountability for these airstrikes and the many that have followed, all of which are legally questionable?  Or will they instead acquiesce to Trump arbitrarily conducting a war? 

The publisher of Franklin the Turtle has completely denounced Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s AI depiction of the children’s character launching missiles at “drug boats,” which made light of his own potential war crime. 

“Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity,” Kids Can Press publishing house wrote on X Monday. “We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values.” 

Hegseth’s post—another installment in the GOP’s AI image fetish—was an imitation of the cover of the Franklin children’s books, and reads “A Classic Franklin Story: Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.” It shows the turtle in full U.S. military combat gear, launching a missile at brown-skinned men in their boats from a helicopter.  

“For your Christmas wish list …” Hegseth captioned the post.

The Trump administration has killed at least 80 people in its attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea, claiming they are trafficking drugs to the United States. The most recent attack saw someone from the Trump administration order a boat to be bombed off the coast of Trinidad, and then bombed again once it was known that two people had survived—which may constitute a war crime. The White House has recently shifted blame onto Admiral Frank Bradley, but a Washington Post report noted that Hegseth made the initial order to leave no survivors. 

It’s a bleak situation when the administration’s cruelty and lack of seriousness has Franklin the Turtle’s publisher reminding us not to use him in posts about extrajudicial bombings and warfare. 

Donald Trump has officially pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, according to the ex-leader’s attorney. He was released from a federal prison in West Virginia early Tuesday.

Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison for playing a central role in what the Biden administration deemed to be “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Though Trump is blaming the conviction on Biden, much of the investigation began during Trump’s first term, with his now Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove acting as one of the lead investigators on the case.

The investigation found that Hernández moved mountains of cocaine between 2004 and 2022, facilitating the influx of more than 400 tons of the highly addictive substance into the U.S.

Under the protection of a machine gun-wielding, grenade launcher-toting gang, Hernández received “millions of dollars of drug money from some of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere.” The politico used that money to fuel his political ambitions, pay off bribes, and extend legal protections toward himself and his drug trafficking co-conspirators during his time in office.

The decision to release him comes just days after Hernández penned a sugar-coated letter to the U.S. president in which he claimed to be a victim of “political persecution” by the Biden administration, reported The New York Times.

Trump announced Friday that he planned to grant Hernández a “full and complete pardon,” though a White House official told the Times that the decision had nothing to do with the letter. Trump, at the time, had not seen the appeal, the official said on the condition of anonymity.

“This was a clear Biden over-prosecution,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “He was the president of this country. He was in the opposition party. He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s approach to curbing narcoterrorism—which has involved bombing small boats in the Caribbean suspected of smuggling drugs without evidence—has run afoul of international law. It has also placed an outsized target on drug mules, potentially the lowest and least significant participants on the drug trade totem pole.

The decision to wipe Hernández’s record clean appears to be a seismic departure from the Trump administration’s rhetoric on drug trafficking. After celebrating the deaths of several people killed in an airstrike in September, Vice President JD Vance claimed that “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” That rule apparently does not apply to the head honchos of the drug trade—or to the White House.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s social media addiction appeared to reach a new level last night.

The president made more than 150  posts to his Truth Social account late Monday night, resharing praise for his deportation agenda, fake news about Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, complaints about California Governor Gavin Newsom, and claims that Nancy Pelosi was the real mastermind behind the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Freelance journalist Yashar Ali shared a screen recording of Trump’s social media binge, documenting the trove of late night posts. The scroll lasts nearly five minutes.

“TRUTH SOCIAL IS THE BEST! There is nothing even close!!!” Trump wrote hours later, after the sun had come up.

That level of social media fixation puts Trump in line with America’s teens, who are spending hours on social media to the detriment of their mental health, according to a 2024 report by the American Psychological Association.

Social media addictions can be a horrible catch-22, feeding anxiety for users when they’re gravitating to the platform to distract from other stressors. But with so many scandals on his plate, it’s not clear which could have been rattling the president late Monday.

Trump is currently playing cover for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who stands accused of violating international human rights law for permitting—or perhaps ordering—a second airstrike on a small Venezuelan boat in early September to kill all survivors. He has also leveraged the attacks to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power, something that he tried and failed to do in 2019—though in the process he has rallied tens of thousands of Venezuelans against the United States.

On the other side of the planet, Trump still has yet to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, something that he had promised from the first day he returned to office.

The 79-year-old could also be concerned about his health. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s public appeal for the release of Trump’s medical records appeared to seriously get under the president’s skin late Monday, inciting a wave of insults directed at the onetime vice presidential candidate by way of his keyboard. Still, public concerns prevail that there could be something seriously wrong with Trump, particularly after news broke that he covertly underwent some soft tissue scans.

Beyond all of that, the Epstein files—which reportedly mention Trump’s name numerous times—are on their way.

President Trump is making baseless claims of fraud in the Honduran election as he continues to publicly meddle in an incredibly close race between his choice—the conservative Tito Asfura—and liberal Salvador Nasralla. 

“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!” President Trump said Monday night with zero evidence to back it up. “The National Electoral Commission, the official body charged with counting the Votes, abruptly stopped counting at midnight on November 30th. Their count showed a close race between Tito Asfura and Salvador Nasralla with Asfura holding a narrow lead of 500 votes. Their tally was stopped when only 47 percent of the Vote was counted. It is imperative that the Commission finish counting the Votes. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans must have their Votes counted. Democracy must prevail!” 

In reality, this is a very slim election that will take the National Electoral Council, or CNE, an extended period of time to count. Preliminary results on Monday had Asfura ahead of Nasralla by just 515 points. 

“Faced with this technical tie, we must remain calm, be patient, and wait for the CNE to finish counting,” said CNE head Ana Paola Hall. “Subsequently, the special counting process will be carried out in order to finalise the general count.”

Trump has already promised to cut off aid to Honduras if Asfura doesn’t win. Now he is further undermining the country’s electoral sovereignty by trying to lie his way into a favorable result. It’s obvious that Trump has his own agenda for Honduras, especially given his pardon of prolific drug trafficker and conservative former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison on drug-trafficking and weapons charges. The game plan is almost identical to Argentina—meddle in elections, promise funding to guarantee  your preferred candidate’s victory, and reap the benefits. 

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly accused Pete Hegseth Monday of “playing army,” after the defense secretary posted a juvenile meme making light of his military’s extrajudicial executions. 

Speaking at a press conference, Kelly nailed precisely what’s so disturbing about Hegseth’s lackluster leadership of the Pentagon: He’s like a little kid playing dress-up.  

“I mean, think about this: He runs around on a stage talking about lethality and warrior ethos and killing people. We have the most competent, capable military this planet has ever seen by far. That’s not the message that needs to come from the secretary of defense,” Kelly said. 

Instead of focusing on the military’s mission, “he runs around on a stage like he’s a 12-year-old playing army. And it is ridiculous, it is embarrassing,” Kelly said. “And I can’t imagine what our allies think of looking at that guy in this job, one of the most important jobs in our country.” 

Kelly was referring to Hegseth’s outrageous summit in September, where he invited droves of top military personnel to listen to him lecture about how much he hates the way overweight men with beards make him feel. 

The Arizona senator seems to be fighting back after becoming a target for the Trump administration. Last week, Hegseth threatened to court-martial Kelly, a former astronaut and U.S. naval officer, after he appeared in a video alongside fellow Democratic lawmakers to urge members of the U.S. military and intelligence community not to follow illegal orders. 

Kelly also slammed Hegseth for posting an AI image of the popular children’s character Franklin the Turtle extrajudicially blowing up “drug boats,” just days after it was revealed the secretary potentially committed a war crime of his own. 

“He is in the national command authority for nuclear weapons, and last night he’s putting out on the internet turtles with rocket-propelled grenades. I mean, have you seen this? This is the secretary of defense, this is not a serious person. He should have been fired after Signalgate, and then every day after that,” Kelly said. 

Kelly noted that the threats on his family’s lives had “obviously” increased since President Donald Trump accused him of sedition “punishable by death” last week. Hegseth also accused Kelly of sedition—though even pro-Trump legal experts say that claim falls flat. 

Kash Patel is in hot water for joyriding on the FBI’s dime.

Top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Monday opened an investigation into multiple flights that Patel took last month with a $60 million government jet.

The visits were reportedly to visit his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, who was performing at a wrestling event at Penn State.

The jet owner’s listed address, according to its FAA registration, is the FBI’s national headquarters in Washington. After Penn State, the plane’s flight log indicates it flew to Nashville, where Wilkins lives.

In a letter addressed to Patel, committee Democrats asked the bureau to hand over flight records and communications with recent passengers aboard to inform their investigation.

“You flew there because your girlfriend was performing at a wrestling match on the campus of Pennsylvania State University,” they wrote. “After attending her performance, you used the government’s jet to fly with her home to Nashville the following day. Your ‘date night’ had no apparent connections to your official duties.”

The caucus also accused Patel of using the government plane mere days later to spend time with some friends in Texas.

“Later that weekend, you took the FBI jet to San Angelo, Texas, for four days, where Republican Party mega-donor Bubba Saulsbury hosted you at Boondoggle Ranch—‘a scenic hunting resort’ that touts itself as the ideal place to ‘waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects,’” committee Democrats continued.

But that’s not all: CBS News reported earlier this year that Patel potentially used the FBI’s jets several more times, including a jaunt to Las Vegas and another trip to Nashville, both of which occurred in March.

The entire situation is a bit of a hypocritical development for the former podcaster, who used to regularly chastise government officials for needless spending before joining the Trump administration. He relentlessly hounded the financial behavior of the man who previously filled his shoes—former FBI Director Chris Wray—even arguing in 2023 that the FBI should “ground” Wray’s private jet “that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country.”