Rand Paul Bashes Pete Hegseth Over Boat Bombings: 'He Was Lying…or He's Incompetent'

Paul says Hegseth misled Congress about deadly strikes on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean.

Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) expressed outrage at being misled by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea.

Hegseth initially claimed to have had no knowledge of a reported second strike on a vessel, which killed two alleged drug traffickers who were clinging to their ship's wreckage after the first strike. The following day, the White House confirmed the second strike—maintaining that it had been authorized.

Rand Paul:

"Sec. Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this and it did not happen. It was fake news. And then the next day, from the podium of the WH, they're saying it did happen. So either he was lying to us on Sunday or he's incompetent and didn't know what had happened." pic.twitter.com/btmpIt6lcH

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) December 3, 2025

Paul is correct to harp on this point, since the second strike—if undertaken for the sole purpose of killing the survivors—is flagrantly illegal and immoral. It is a "war crime," according to legal analyst Andrew Napolitano.

But of course, the overarching problem is that the initial strike on the boat lacks clear legitimacy. In fact, on some level, it's a bit odd for the media to fixate on the second strike to such a degree, since there can be little doubt that the first strike was intended to destroy the boat and kill everyone on board. The expectation had to be that blowing up the ship would result in the deaths of all passengers, one way or another.

The proper question, then, is whether it is appropriate for President Donald Trump to designate alleged "narco-traffickers" as terrorists and consign them to death. Here too, Paul is correctly raising the point that most Americans would recoil at the idea of the president unilaterally determining that an individual is a terrorist and thus subject to being killed. If Trump really does want to go this route, then at the very least, Congress should vote to authorize military action against the alleged drug traffickers. Otherwise, it's akin to an overseas law enforcement operation, in which certain principles of due process should obviously apply.

On this week's episode of Free Media, I discussed the killings of alleged drug traffickers with Amber Duke and Niall Stanage. Watch here.