Aboard Air Force One on Sunday, reporters began to ask Trump about the Post’s report about Hegseth, but the president quickly cut in. “I don’t know anything about it. He said he did not say that, and I believe him 100 percent,” Trump said.
A reporter then asked if Trump would be okay with the order if Hegseth had given it. He responded, “He said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision.”
But during the same gaggle, Trump appeared to suggest he wouldn’t have been in favor of that second strike. “We’ll look into it, but no I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.” he said. “The first strike was very lethal, it was fine, and if there were two people around. But Pete said that didn’t happen. I have great confidence in him.”
When pressed on whether the second strike took place, Trump said, “I don’t know. I’m going to find out about it. But Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read a prepared statement on the September, suggesting that Admiral Frank Bradley, who then led the Joint Special Operations Command, was the one who made the final call on the strikes rather than Hegseth.
“With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United Sates of America was eliminated,” she said.
Leavitt also seemed to acknowledge that the second strike did in fact occur, putting her words in direct conflict with past assertions from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell that the entirety of the Post report was inaccurate. “We told the Washington Post that this entire narrative was false yesterday,” Parnell said Friday.
