Pete Hegseth Dodges Key Question About Boat Strike

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to great lengths Saturday to avoid saying whether the military will release the full, unedited video of its controversial September 2 double-tap strikes on a boat it claims was carrying drugs in the Caribbean.

Thus far, only footage of the first strike has been released to the public. The full unreleased video, however, reportedly goes on to show two survivors clinging to the wreckage, before they were killed by a second strike that legal experts have described as a war crime or murder.

Democratic lawmakers who viewed the full video of the strikes, which killed 11 people, this week said it was “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service” and that it “confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump administration’s military activities.”

When asked Wednesday if his administration would release footage of the second strike, President Donald Trump’s answer was simple: “Whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem.”

His defense secretary was much more evasive.

“When can we see that video? When will you release it?” Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson asked Hegseth at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

Hegseth was noncommittal. “We’re reviewing it, right now, to make sure, sources, methods—I mean, it’s an ongoing operation—TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures]. We’ve got operators out there doing this right now. So, whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible about. So, we’re reviewing that right now.”

Later on, Tomlinson asked whether Hegseth will release the full video at all. Hegseth responded, again, without answering. “We are reviewing it right now,” he said.

“Is that a yes or no?” Tomlinson pressed.

Hegseth strung together the following response: “The most important thing to me are the ongoing operations in the Caribbean with our folks that use bespoke capabilities, techniques, procedures in the process. I’m way more interested in protecting that than anything else, so we’re reviewing a process and we’ll see.”

Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington is calling for the release of Wilmer Toledo-Martinez, an immigrant who she says was mauled last month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attack dog in Vancouver, Washington.

According to Murray’s office, Toledo-Martinez is an immigrant with no criminal convictions, who came to the United States at 15 years old. His wife and three children—ages 2, 3, and 7, respectively—are all U.S. citizens.

On November 14, Toledo-Martinez reportedly answered a knock at his door to find a federal immigration agent posing as a construction worker, who claimed to have hit his car.

Toledo-Martinez went outside and was asked his name. When he turned to go inside to retrieve his insurance and ID, another agent is said to have released the dog, which bit him repeatedly, leaving injuries that were later captured in graphic images provided by Murray. His wife and two youngest children reportedly watched as this occurred.

In a video, seemingly taken moments after the attack, Toledo-Martinez is seen on the ground in handcuffs as an agent with a K9 stands over him. Another agent in a neon vest asks Toledo-Martinez his name before moving him into a truck.

On The Don Lemon Show, Toledo-Martinez’s lawyer, Olia Catala, said her client was denied immediate medical care. He was only later taken to a hospital, she said, after he begged them to do so and heard one of the agents say, “I’m not losing my job over this.”

To this day, Toledo-Martinez remains in Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, according to Murray.

“This should shock the conscience of every one of us,” Murray said in a statement Friday. “I do not want to live in an America where federal agents can sic attack dogs on peaceful residents with impunity and face no consequences.”

“I am calling for Wilmer’s immediate release from NWIPC,” the statement continues. “He has no criminal convictions, he poses no threat to the community, and he urgently needs appropriate medical care since ICE is denying him the treatment he requires.”

He just can’t let it go. President Donald Trump is still over the moon after receiving the FIFA Peace Prize on Friday, an award invented expressly to stroke his ego.

On Saturday morning, the president, after dashing off some angry rants at a CNN reporter and Fox and Friends, dreamily revisited the experience.

“Such a great honor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, sharing a Newsmax article about the event. “Thank you FIFA, and have a historic World Cup!”

Gianni Infantino, the president of the international soccer league, presented Trump with the brand new award at the 2026 FIFA World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

“This is your peace prize,” Infantino said, as he handed the president a certificate, a trophy, and a medal.

A beaming Trump responded by speaking about how truly honored he was to receive it. “We’ve saved millions and millions of lives,” Trump said, gushing about the award. “So many different wars that we were able to end.”

The president has lobbied for years for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor bestowed on other leaders like President Barack Obama. In support of his ongoing quest, Trump continues to repeat the highly questionable claim that he’s ended several wars. It’s hard to keep track of how many; the number, magically, keeps climbing.

By giving the president something he said he’d always wanted, Infantino was clearly seizing upon an opportunity to appease the world leader. But the move (unsurprisingly) garnered criticism. FIFA is supposed to be a neutral body, and Trump’s record isn’t exactly peaceful.

Among other things, Trump’s administration has killed more than 80 people in deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean, armed and supported Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza, and overseen a violent crackdown against immigrants in the U.S. He’s also made aggressive moves that could indicate a potential future war with Venezuela.

None of that seemed to matter much at the ceremony on Friday, though.

While the president is very pleased to be the recipient of this new, prestigious, very-much-not-invented award, does this mean he’ll finally shut up about the Nobel?

It’s very, very unlikely.

Juan Orlando Hernández—narcotrafficker, former Honduran president, and recent recipient of a pardon from President Donald Trump—played a key role in what the Justice Department dubbed “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”

Now, Hernández, who once reportedly told his co-conspirators that they were going to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses,” is heaping gratitude on leading figures in MAGA (a movement purportedly in favor of stopping the influx of drugs into the United States, by any means necessary).

On X Friday, Hernández shared his first message since being released from a U.S. prison, where he was just over a year into a 45-year sentence: an 11-minute Spanish-language speech expressing his “profound gratitude to President Donald Trump,” along with a tweet extolling Trump and other key figures in his orbit.

Hernández specifically thanked Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz, allies of the president who played central roles in the campaign for his pardon. (They characterized Hernández’s prosecution in the sort of grievance-soaked terms Trump could appreciate, as an alleged instance of lawfare by the Biden administration.)

Hernández also extended his gratitude to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has described the former Honduran president as a victim of “Biden over-prosecution,” as well as to Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s MAGA pardon attorney, and Trump’s “pardon czar,” Alice Marie Johnson.

Social media users are skewering the U.S. Treasury Department for bragging about something eminently non-bragworthy.

On Friday, the Treasury Department’s official X account shared a chart reflecting that, in 2025, “U.S. Treasuries are having their best year since 2020.” Claiming that this indicates high investor confidence in President Donald Trump’s agenda, the post continued, “Never bet against @POTUS or America!”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent chimed in with a celebratory meme of the children’s book character Franklin the Turtle holding a stack of money while wearing a MAGA hat. (The administration also recently used Franklin’s likeness to make light of its reported war crimes in the Caribbean.)

But, as many observers were quick to note, rising bond market returns actually may signal economic uncertainty, as investors anticipating a slowdown or instability seek safety in Treasuries. The high bond returns in 2020, for example, reflected such a “flight to safety” amid the economic turmoil of the pandemic.

Mike Bird, Wall Street editor at The Economist, shared his own Franklin the Turtle meme, in which the character wears a worried expression as he “discovers that rising bond prices can also imply lower future growth expectations”:

The Treasury Department’s post left some observers in disbelief. Adam Kinzinger, political commentator and former Republican U.S. representative, had the following to say: “Wait. Wut? Higher is bad…. Wait…. No way they’re…. Nooooo, what?!?!”

The ridicule spanned the political spectrum. Progressive MS NOW commentator Chris Hayes said he initially thought the tweet was parody. Libertarian Atlantic staff writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote, “Oh my God. They really don’t know.” Tim Chapman of the conservative policy organization Advancing American Freedom said the Treasury Department’s social media team “needs a crash course in Economics 101.”

Never Trump conservative writer Bill Kristol called the post “total economic illiteracy (or gaslighting),” noting, “This is like saying sales of cold medicine are having a great year, aren’t our health policies working great!”

Amanda Fischer, policy director at Better Markets and former chief of staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission, called it a “hall of fame level derp tweet.” And @3YearLetterman, a satirical internet personality known for sharing comically ignorant takes on sports, culture, and politics, posted, “I can’t top this.”