Trump 'Wouldn't Have Wanted' Second Strike...

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President Donald Trump on Sunday evening addressed the controversy surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his alleged order for a second strike on a Venezuelan boat to ensure all passengers were dead.

“He said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision,” Trump said, adding when pressed yet again about the legality of the strikes: "I wouldn't have wanted that - a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine."

Why It Matters

Hegseth has defended the strikes on boats in the Caribbean as “lawful” after The Washington Post reported that he ordered military officials to leave “no survivors” during a September strike on an alleged drug boat.

Hegseth responded to the report and critics of the strikes with a post on X, in which he wrote that current operations are “lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”

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What To Know

Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to D.C. from Florida, where he spent the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and held talks with Ukrainian officials as the U.S. continues to try and broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

But reporters focused on other matters that hit closer to home, including the controversy around the report that Hegseth ordered "no survivors" of the strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Trump told reporters he didn’t “know anything about it,” but that Hegseth assured him that “he did not say that.”

“Pete said he did not order the death of those men,” Trump said when asked again about a second strike on the boat, and avoided answering whether he would have been okay with a second strike if Hegseth had ordered one.

Trump also said that he would "look into it," but he backed the strikes, saying he had "great confidence" in Hegseth and that drug deliveries by sea have become "infinitesimal" compared to what they had been. He also said that the drugs were visible in the boats before the strikes, justifying the destruction of the boats.

Update 11/30/25, 6:33 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.