Sen. Wicker joins Democrat Reed to press Hegseth to explain, justify U.S. boat strikes
by Taylor Vance, Mississippi Today
October 31, 2025
Sen. Roger Wicker, Armed Services Committee chairman, and his Democratic counterpart have asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide the legal basis for the U.S. military’s attacks on supposed drug boats off the South American coast.
Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, and Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, also requested the directives Hegseth approved for the military strikes and the unedited videos of some of the attacks.
The U.S. military has killed at least 61 people in 14 strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the Associated Press.
The requests from the high-ranking senators were made in two letters, one from late September and the other from early October, which were released on Friday by Wicker and Reed. The two senators said in a joint news release that they had not yet received the requested information by Friday.
President Donald Trump’s administration has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. Some senators from both parties have questioned the administration’s use of military force without congressional approval, though neither of Mississippi’s senators has done so.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
