Democrats Say Hegseth–Rubio Briefing Failed to Explain Double-Tap Strike

After a classified briefing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, Democrats said Tuesday that they remain unconvinced by the Trump administration’s account of the Sept. 2 “double-tap” boat strike and want the Department of Defense to release the full video.

“It was a very unsatisfying briefing,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters right after the briefing. “I asked Secretary Hegseth … would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the Sept. 2 strike. His answer: We have to study it. Well, in my view, they’ve studied it long enough.”

The administration’s top officials came to the Capitol to brief the “gang of eight,” a bipartisan group of congressional and intelligence leaders. It was the second classified briefing in a week on the Sept. 2 strikes on a boat the administration says carried drugs. This briefing, like the last closed-door session, failed to put lawmakers at ease about the administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean, which have so far killed at least 87 people with no authorization of war from Congress.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the latest briefing left him with “a lot of questions” about the entire mission.

“When you’re talking about the American military potentially taking actions that are not appropriate under international law, I want to be proven that that was not the case,” he told reporters after the briefing Tuesday.

The frustration stems from a Washington Post report that said Hegseth gave a verbal order to kill everyone on board the boat targeted Sept. 2, which allegedly led Adm. Frank Bradley to order a second strike on two men clinging to the wreckage, which could violate the laws of war. The administration denies that Hegseth issued such an order and says Bradley acted within his authority.

After calls for more details from Congress, Trump said he had “no problem” releasing the full video. But on Monday, he backed away.

“I didn’t say that,” he told ABC News. “Whatever Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.” Warner said the administration continues to withhold both full footage and basic legal documents.

“I believe the American people deserve to see [the video],” he said. “It’s a little strange where administration officials say, ‘Well, we can release edited versions of videos that they like to brag about, but then not at least show immediate moments, up to including the second strike.”

Warner said he has also asked for execution orders, communications, legal opinions and information about whether the legal justification changed after the strike.

“So far, I’ve not got those answers,” he said. “I did not get a complete refusal, but I got inadequate answers.”

Congress is trying to force the issue by adding language to the National Defense Authorization Act that withholds a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget until the Pentagon turns over the unedited strike videos.

Trump told Politico in an interview published Tuesday that President Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered” and would not rule out deploying U.S. troops into Venezuela to root out drug networks. Some lawmakers on both parties have already tried and failed twice to rein in the president with war power resolutions, but another was filed last week aimed at blocking any move towards a land strike.