Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) snubbed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday following a meeting among top congressional leaders over attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, just off the coast of Venezuela.
Several Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern over reports that two strikes were ordered during an attack on Sept. 2, killing survivors in what some GOP leaders called illegal, according to Reuters. The White House on Monday confirmed the second order was directed by a senior military leader, after shifting the story on lethal strikes.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley ordered the second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, just off the coast of Venezuela, and that it was "well within his authority to do so."
Thune, who was asked Monday about Hegseth's leadership, said it wasn't up to him to make decisions on the Pentagon leader's conduct.
“I don’t have, at this point, I guess, an evaluation of the secretary. Others can make those evaluations,” Thune said, according to a post on X from Punchbowl News senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio.
He added that what is important is that the country is safer, saying that “under President Trump’s leadership, that’s the case.”
"THUNE takes a pass on supporting HEGSETH," Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman wrote on X.
Hegseth faced scrutiny after he reportedly delivered an order in the first attack on a suspected drug boat that lawmakers have blasted as excessive and "blatantly illegal," according to a Washington Post report published Friday. Intelligence analysts and military leaders who watched drone footage of the strike realized that after the smoke cleared, two survivors were clinging to the wreckage. Hegseth reportedly gave another verbal directive.
“The order was to kill everybody,” said a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
In a post on X Sunday, Hegseth shared a meme of popular children’s book character Franklin, a turtle, firing on boats from a helicopter.