(Bloomberg) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on deadly US airstrikes against alleged drug-running boats off the Venezuelan coast, saying he would have made the same call as the admiral who ordered survivors to be killed.

The nearly two dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have come under bipartisan scrutiny, but recent reports that a September strike included a second one to kill two survivors clinging to wreckage at sea have prompted accusations of possible war crimes.

Most Read from Bloomberg

“From what I understood then and what I understand now, I fully support that strike,” Hegseth said Saturday. “I would have made the same call myself.”

His remarks during and after a speech at the Reagan Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, went a step further than his comments at the White House earlier in the week, when he appeared to lay responsibility on Admiral Frank Bradley, who ordered the second strike on the same boat.

Hegseth praised the policy of sinking boats and killing alleged drug-runners whom the Trump administration considers enemy combatants and not criminals. That policy has led to serious debate in Congress and among legal experts about whether they are legal, and whether the boats are actually headed for the US.

“The days in which these narco-terrorists, designated terror organizations, operate freely in our hemisphere are over,” Hegseth said. “These narco-terrorists are the al-Qaeda of our hemisphere.”

Democratic lawmakers who saw video of the attack called it disturbing and demanded the full footage. President Donald Trump has said he would allow the video to be released publicly after it was shown to members of Congress.

On Saturday, Hegseth said the Pentagon is reviewing the video but declined to say whether the Pentagon will release the whole thing.

Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army combat veteran, noted on CNN’s that the video could be released to members of Congress with top secret clearances, like her and other members of the armed services and foreign relations committees.

“You had two survivors clinging to half of a boat, and then you went in and you killed them,” she said Sunday of Hegseth. “That’s a war crime.”

Senator John Curtis of Utah, a Republican who leads the Western Hemisphere subcommittee on the Foreign Relations panel, pledged on the same program that there would be hearings about the strikes.

“I think Congress really wants to know exactly what’s happening and the real facts, not what’s reported in the newspaper.”

Hegseth has said he wasn’t watching when Bradley ordered a second strike on the boat and had sought to distance himself from it. White House and Pentagon officials have insisted it was a lawful use of force.

Bradley, a Navy SEAL, told US lawmakers on Thursday that there was no “kill all” order from Hegseth regarding a second strike on a drug-running boat meant to kill two survivors clinging onto the wreckage, as The Washington Post reported. Hegseth has said he was not in the room for the follow-on strike but that he fully supports Bradley’s decision.

On Saturday, he added that he would have ordered a second strike himself.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican whose vote was key to Hegseth’s narrow confirmation in January and is retiring from Congress, earlier called the second strike “a violation of ethical, moral and legal code.”

Hegseth vigorously touted the administration’s military moves and vision in the year since Trump returned to office, including airstrikes in Yemen, an attack on Iran’s nuclear program and the strikes that have killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“Past administrations perpetuated the belief that the Monroe Doctrine had expired,” Hegseth said. “They were wrong. The Monroe Doctrine is in effect, and it is stronger than ever under the Trump corollary, a common-sense restoration of our power and prerogatives in this hemisphere, consistent with US interests.”

Hegseth also came under criticism this week after the Pentagon’s internal watchdog found that he had endangered US troops when he sent detailed attack plans to an unsecured Signal group chat earlier this year. While Hegseth called the report a total exoneration, the internal Pentagon watchdog said he had violated Pentagon regulations by using his personal cell phone to relay the plans. But on Saturday Hegseth said he doesn’t “live with any regrets” about the Signal incident.

–With assistance from Nick Wadhams and María Paula Mijares Torres.

(Updates with members of Congress quotes beginning in ninth paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.