Strike survivors deserved death for 'trying to flip their boat back over': GOP senator

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) insisted that two survivors of the strike on a small alleged drug boat deserved to die because they were trying to "flip" the vessel back over after it was hit.

Following a briefing from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley on Thursday, Cotton defended the Pentagon's decision to continue firing on the boat after the first strike.

"The second strike and the third and the fourth strike on September 2nd were entirely lawful and needful, and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do," the senator insisted.

"What exactly did you see in terms of the video of the second strike?" one reporter asked. "Were there survivors?"

"I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over, so they could stay in the fight," Cotton replied. "And potentially, given all the contacts we heard, of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narco-terrorists, and just like you would blow up a boat, off of the Somali coast or the Yemeni coast and you'd come back and strike it again if it still had terrorists and it still had explosives or missiles."

The boat, however, did not have explosives or missiles and was too small to pose a threat to the U.S. mainland from that distance, many experts have said.

"I didn't see anything disturbing about it," Cotton told the reporters. "And we're going to continue to strike these boats until cartels learn their lesson that their drugs are no longer coming to America."

"But Congressman Himes said that according to what he saw in that video, the two people who survived trying to get back on the boat, there was no way they could have conducted further operations or anything like that?" a reporter pressed.

"He may be okay with drug boats running to America," Cotton snapped. "I just disagree with that."

"If you think these strikes are justified and righteous, as I do, and I want them to continue, then of course the second strike, when you have two survivors, who are trying to flip their boat back over and continue on their mission, remain in the battle," he added.