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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth offered new details Saturday about how he personally authorized the Trump administration’s first strike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel off Venezuela on Sept. 2, telling Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson that he watched the strike live in the Pentagon after giving the green light.
Earlier in his keynote remarks, Hegseth declared that President Donald Trump is the true heir to Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” doctrine, accusing past bipartisan leaders of drifting into endless wars.
After his speech, Hegseth sat down with Tomlinson for a Q&A that revealed new details about the Sept. 2 operation, which he said was the first in a series of more than 20 U.S. strikes targeting cartel-linked narco-terrorist networks across the Caribbean.
He also sharply rejected reporting that he had instructed U.S. forces to kill all individuals on the boat.
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gives a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Saturday, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (Caylo Seals/Getty Images)
“Does anybody here from the Washington Post? I don’t know where you get your sources, but they suck,” Hegseth said when asked if he had ever issued such an order. “Of course not… you don’t walk in and say, ‘Kill them.’ It’s just patently ridiculous.”
Hegseth also said it took “a couple of weeks, almost a month” to build the intelligence required for the first strike. He said the Pentagon had to reorient assets that had been focused “10,000 miles around the other side of the world for a very long time.”
He kept strike authority at his level only for the initial operation due to its “strategic implications.”
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivers the keynote address at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Saturday, in Simi Valley, Calif. (Fox News / Pool)
“The briefing that I received before that strike was extensive, exhaustive,” he said. “Military side, on the civilian side, lawyers, intel analysts, red-teaming… all the details you need to strike a designated terrorist organization.”
Hegseth said the target was part of an organization President Trump had formally designated as a terrorist group.
“My job was to say execute or don’t execute,” he said.
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivers the keynote address at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Saturday, in Simi Valley, Calif. (Fox News / Pool)
According to Hegseth, he viewed the mission feed “for probably five minutes or so” before moving to other tasks once the strike shifted to tactical execution.
Hours later, Hegseth said he was informed by commanders that a second strike was necessary.
“There had to be a re-attack, because there were a couple of folks that could still be in the fight,” he said, citing access to radios, a possible link-up point with another boat and remaining drugs on board.
“I fully support that strike,” he said. “I would have made the same call myself.”
He added that re-attacks are common in combat zones and fell “well within the authorities of Admiral Bradley,” who now oversees strike decisions. Hegseth said he no longer retains approval authority for subsequent missions.
Addressing questions about survivor protocols, Hegseth pointed to a later incident involving a semi-submersible drug vessel.
“In that particular case, the first strike didn’t take it out, and a couple of guys jumped off and swam,” he said. After the vessel was struck again and sank, U.S. forces retrieved the survivors.
“We gave them back to their host countries,” he said, adding that the situation “didn’t change our protocol” but reflected different circumstances.
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Fox News Channel’s Shannon Bream, right, interviews Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought at the Reagan National Defense Forum Saturday, in Simi Valley, Calif.
Hegseth argued that the operations have already had a deterrent effect. “We’re putting them at the bottom of the Caribbean… it will make the American people safer.”
Tomlinson pressed Hegseth on President Trump’s public statement that he did not oppose releasing the unredacted video of the first strike.
“We’re reviewing it right now,” Hegseth said, citing concerns over “sources, methods,” and ongoing operations.
Hegseth said defense spending is one of the issues that “keeps [him] up,” adding that he was recently in Oval Office meetings about the FY26 and FY27 budgets.
Asked directly whether defense spending as a share of GDP will rise, he replied: “I think that number is going up,” while declining to get ahead of President Trump.
“We need a revived defense industrial base,” he said. “We need those capabilities. We need them yesterday.”
Tomlinson also asked whether Hegseth regretted using Signal ahead of combat operations in Yemen, referencing a recently closed inspector general review.
“I don’t live with any regrets,” Hegseth said. “I know exactly where my compass is on our troops.” He argued that morale has surged under Trump.
“The revival of the spirit inside our military… the desire to join and re-enlist is at historic levels,” he said.
Asked whether he prefers troops equipped with more AI-enabled tools or autonomous systems replacing them, Hegseth said the modern battlefield requires both.
“It has to be both,” he said. “What AI is doing to ten, 100, 1,000-x the speed of sensing… is critical.”
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Tomlinson ended with a traditional Reagan Forum question: who Hegseth wants to win the Army–Navy game.
“Well, I’m with Navy,” he said, before adding that the Marine Corps “stood strong” during political “nonsense” in recent years.
