What To Know

"There's a standard, there's an ethos, there's a belief, that we are above […] so many things our enemies or others would do," Hegseth said in the 2016 video.

The Pentagon, when approached about the video on Wednesday, referred Newsweek to Hegseth's November remarks, in which the defense secretary said: "The fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland."

Shown the clip on air on CNN, Kelly said Hegseth was "correct" and it echoed what the Democrats had said. "But when we said it," Kelly added, "he says what we said was false and reckless."

"Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders, you can refuse illegal orders, you must refuse illegal orders," the six Democrats said in the video last month. "No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution."

Former officials and experts have raised serious concerns about the deployment of the National Guard in Democrat-led cities and whether U.S. strikes on alleged drug vessels in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September have broken domestic and international law. Newsweek previously reported that former officials were increasingly worried about the sidelining of military lawyers in the Pentagon and the messaging from the administration, which has discouraged military commanders from seeking legal advice.

The U.S. strike campaign on suspected narcotrafficking boats has come under increased scrutiny, with bipartisan calls for closer monitoring growing. The GOP-led Senate and House Armed Services committees have pledged to look into the first U.S. attack on an alleged drug vessel on September 2 after it emerged the military had carried out a second strike on the boat after an initial attack left two survivors.

Hegseth said the day after the first strike in September he had watched the attack "live." But in remarks on Tuesday, the defense secretary said he was made aware of the need for a second strike "hours" later, distancing himself from the mission that has called into question whether a war crime was committed.

Shipwrecked people have specific legal protections and there are concerns the survivors of the initial strike may have been off-limits to attacks. The administration has at once said it supports U.S. Navy Admiral Frank Bradley, the now-head of the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) who oversaw the operation, and sought to distance itself from the decision-making in the midst of the mission.

Hegseth told reporters he did "not personally see survivors" through the "fog of war." Trump also said he "didn’t know about the second strike."

The Washington Post first reported last week Bradley ordered a second strike after Hegseth had allegedly issued a verbal order to kill everyone on board before the mission took place. The Pentagon and Hegseth denied this.
What People Are Saying

"Pete Hegseth says he’s going to court-martial me for saying the same exact thing he said 9 years ago," Arizona Senator Mark Kelly said on Tuesday. "What changed for Pete? Well to start, he spends all day thinking about how he can suck up to Trump."

Pentagon spokesperson, Kingsley Wilson, told reporters on Tuesday: "At the end of the day, the secretary and the president are the ones directing these strikes. And any follow-on strikes, like those which were directed by Admiral Bradley, the secretary 100 percent agrees with."

>>1462329
He should have been fired for Signalgate, would have been under any other normal competent administration.

>>1462334
Under a normal competent administration a Fox News weekend host with 'Deus Vult' tattoos wouldn't have been hired as SecDef in the first place.

>>1462336
Exactly. Every veteran I've talked to thinks Pete Hegseth is a clown.

He is ordering attacks on fishing vessels from an oil-rich country on the pretense of stopping drug traffic in international waters, while his boss just pardoned a drug cartel boss from a country that doesn't have that much oil.


this sums up Trump.