After The Washington Post reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered the military to “kill everybody” aboard a boat suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean on September 2, including a second strike to kill two survivors who hung onto the boat after the first strike, Republican and Democratic members of Congress and retired top military officers have voiced concern that the alleged order could be a war crime.
U.S. Senators Roger Wicker (R-MI) and Jack Reed (D-RI), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement about the strikes announcing they plan to conduct “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
[NOTE: Asked about the alleged “kill everybody” spoken order, President Trump on Sunday asserted that Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent.” Trump also said he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike.]
Retired Navy Commander Phil Ehr, who is running as a Democrat in the 2026 Florida 28th congressional district election, responded: “A Secretary of Defense told operators to ‘kill everybody’ even after the first missile strike, even after survivors were clinging to wreckage in the water.”
Ehr added: “I’ve commanded missions where every order carried life-and-death consequences. I know what lawful command looks like, and this isn’t it. Killing unarmed survivors in the open ocean is a violation of the laws of war and every value we swore to uphold. And every veteran who ever carried that oath in their chest knows it.”
Dishonorable. They should have been captured by chopper. This was an order that JSOC should have denied in writing. Hegseth should be fired for this order. https://t.co/eaewGuHmCk
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) December 1, 2025
Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey replied to Ehr: “Dishonorable. They should have been captured by chopper. This was an order that JSOC should have denied in writing. Hegseth should be fired for this order.”
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said U.S. Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who served as commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) before serving as commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, was authorized by Hegseth to carry out the strikes. Leavitt said of Bradley, “And he was well within his authority to do so.”
Reporter: Admiral Bradley was the one who gave that order for a second strike?
Leavitt: And he was well within his authority to do so. pic.twitter.com/a5RrAqtmYU
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 1, 2025
Note: McCaffrey also disapproved of Hegseth last week for calling for retired U.S. Navy Captain and current U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to be recalled to active duty and court-martialed for telling active military members to refuse illegal orders. (Five other members of Congress also delivered the message with Kelly.)
McCaffrey wrote: “Bad judgement by these six Congress members in my view. Shifts burden of national debate over current legal dispute to individual service members. However…. clearly not illegal…free speech. Also separation of powers protected speech.”
Kelly defended himself, saying he wouldn’t be intimidated or back down from an “unqualified Secretary of Defense” or a president who “doesn’t understand the Constitution.”
Kelly also called for Hegseth to be fired: “I cannot think of a Secretary of Defense in the history of our country that is less qualified than Pete Hegseth. He should not be in this position. He should have been fired after Signalgate and now he should be fired again for this, if this is accurate.”
This administration is scared of being held accountable, so they’re trying to intimidate me. Make no mistake—no President or unqualified Secretary of Defense is going to stop me from doing my job. pic.twitter.com/Gvd0jJUhu5
— Senator Mark Kelly (@SenMarkKelly) November 30, 2025