Hegseth said he saw the first attack, but didn’t “stick around” for the second.
Hegseth said he saw the first attack, but didn’t “stick around” for the second.
“We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats,” Hegseth said.
President Donald Trump is scheduled on Thursday morning to host a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House, which is set to be followed in the afternoon by an announcement about “Trump accounts,” according to the White House press secretary.
Also on Tuesday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will join his son-in-law Jared Kushner in a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as the Trump administration seeks to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Key Headlines
Here’s how the news is developing.
29 minutes ago
Hegseth says ‘we’ve only just begun’ putting alleged drug boats at ‘bottom of the ocean’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday, said that “we’ve only just begun” striking alleged drug boats, saying they will be put “at the bottom of the ocean.”
“We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth’s comments come after he has faced bipartisan scrutiny over reports that the U.S. military killed two survivors of an earlier strike on a boat suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea in September.
The White House acknowledges that a second strike was ordered on a boat already hit by the military in the Caribbean Sea, and ABC News has confirmed that survivors from the initial strike were killed as a result.
37 minutes ago
Trump says he spoke with family of National Guard members who were shot
President Trump spoke about last week’s shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., and reflected on his conversations with the family members of the victims.
Trump said the mother of Andrew Wolfe, who is still hospitalized, told him she believed her son would survive.
Trump said he spoke to family of U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, who died as a result of the shooting.
“The rest of their lives are going to be devastated. She was an incredible person, highly respected, top of a class, everything. She was like a perfect human being. 20 years old, just started. She was like a baby. She was so proud,” Trump said.
The president did note that he was proud of the work the National Guard has done in reducing crime in the city.
“Despite what just happened, Washington, D.C. has become a really safe place,” he said.
1 hour and 11 minutes ago
Trump starts Cabinet meeting
Trump began his Cabinet meeting, which he said would be the last of the year.
1 hour and 49 minutes ago
Johnson on 2nd boat strike: ‘I’m not going to prejudge any of that’
When asked about reports that the U.S. military killed two survivors of an earlier strike on a boat suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea in September, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is “not going to prejudge any of that.”
“In a preliminary review, the admiral who ordered the second strike thought it was necessary to complete the mission,” Johnson said, referring to Adm. Mitch Bradley. “He’s highly decorated, highly respected admiral in the Navy and he made that call.”
Johnson said he has not reviewed the “scope of the mission” of “that particular strike,” but he said that the incident will be something that “Congress will look at.” He added that “second strikes are not unusual.”
“I think it’s very important for everybody to reserve judgment and not leap to conclusions until you have all the facts, and that’s what we’ll be uncovering,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
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