Hegseth says he won't publicly release video of boat strike that killed
survivors in the Caribbean
[December 17, 2025]
By STEPHEN GROVES, LISA MASCARO and BEN FINLEY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the
Pentagon will not publicly release unedited video of a U.S. military
strike that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat
allegedly carrying cocaine in the Caribbean, as questions mounted in
Congress about the incident and the overall buildup of U.S. military
forces near Venezuela.
President Donald Trump further ramped up the pressure late Tuesday by
announcing a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers into Venezuela,
which has long relied on oil revenue as the lifeblood of its economy.
Hegseth said members of the Armed Services Committee in the House and
Senate would have an opportunity this week to review the attack video,
but did not say whether all members of Congress would be allowed to see
it as well.
“Of course we're not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video
of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters as he exited a
closed-door briefing with senators.
Trump's Cabinet members overseeing national security were on Capitol
Hill on Tuesday to defend a campaign that has killed at least 95 people
in 25 known strikes on vessels in international waters in the Caribbean
and eastern Pacific. Overall, they defended the campaign as a success,
saying it has prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and they
pushed back on concerns that it is stretching the bounds of lawful
warfare.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the campaign is a
“counter-drug mission” that is “focused on dismantling the
infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are are operating
in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing
Americans, poisoning Americans.”
Lawmakers have been focused on the Sept. 2 attack on two survivors as
they sift through the rationale for a broader U.S. military buildup in
the region. On the eve of the briefings, the U.S. military said it
attacked three more boats believed to have been smuggling drugs in the
eastern Pacific Ocean, killing eight people.
Lawmakers left in the dark about Trump's goal with Venezuela
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Hegseth had come “empty
handed” to the briefing, without a pledge to more broadly release the
video of the Sept. 2 strike.
“If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their
transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean?”
the New York Democrat said.
Senators on both sides of the aisle said the officials left them in the
dark about Trump's goals when it comes to President Nicolás Maduro or
sending U.S. forces directly to the South American nation.
“I want to address the question, is it the goal to take him out? If it’s
not the goal to take him out, you’re making a mistake,” said Sen.
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who defended the legality of
the campaign and said he wanted to see Maduro removed from power.
The U.S. has deployed warships, flown fighter jets near Venezuelan
airspace and seized an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Maduro,
who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to
force him from office. Maduro said on a weekly state television show
Monday that his government still does not know the whereabouts of the
tanker’s crew. He criticized the United Nations for not speaking out
against what he described as an “act of piracy” against “a private ship
carrying Venezuelan oil.”
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks to the auditorium to brief
members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela at the
Capitol, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis
Magana)
Maduro's government for years has evaded U.S. oil sanctions by
smuggling its crude into global supply chains on a shadow fleet of
unflagged tankers.
Trump's Republican administration has not sought any authorization
from Congress for action against Venezuela. The go-it-alone
approach, experts say, has led to problematic military actions, none
more so than the strike that killed two people who had climbed on
top of part of a boat that had been partially destroyed in an
initial attack.
“If it’s not a war against Venezuela, then we’re using armed force
against civilians who are just committing crimes,” said John Yoo, a
Berkeley Law professor who helped craft the George W. Bush
administration's legal arguments and justification for aggressive
interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Then this
question, this worry, becomes really pronounced. You know, you’re
shooting civilians. There’s no military purpose for it."
Yet for the first several months, Congress received little more than
a trickle of information about why or how the U.S. military was
conducting the operations. At times, lawmakers have learned of
strikes from social media after the Pentagon posted videos of boats
bursting into flames.
Hegseth now faces language included in an annual military policy
bill that threatens to withhold a quarter of his travel budget if
the Pentagon does not provide unedited video of the strikes to the
House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.
The demand for release of video footage
For some, the controversy over the footage demonstrates the flawed
rationale behind the entire campaign.
“The American public ought to see it. I think shooting unarmed
people floundering in the water, clinging to wreckage, is not who we
are as a people," said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has
been an outspoken critic of the campaign.
But senators were told the Trump administration won’t release all of
the Sept. 2 attack footage because it would reveal U.S. military
practices on intelligence gathering, said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts. She said the reasoning ignores that the
military has already released footage of the initial attack.
“They just don’t want to reveal the part that suggests war crimes,”
she said.
Some GOP lawmakers are determined to dig into the details of the
Sept. 2 attack. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second
strike, was expected back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for
classified briefings with the Senate and House Armed Services
committees. The committees would also review video of the Sept. 2
strikes, Hegseth said.
Still, many Republicans emerged from the briefings backing the
campaign, defending their legality and praising the “exquisite
intelligence” that is used to identify targets. House Speaker Mike
Johnson called the strike “certainly appropriate” and “necessary to
protect the United States and our interests.”
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Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela,
contributed reporting.
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