President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth found themselves engulfed in a fresh wave of scrutiny on Monday after the White House unveiled a new explanation for the deadly September 2 strike — an explanation so implausible that even longtime observers were stunned.
But within hours, it was Hegseth who made the situation exponentially worse, posting what critics called a passive-aggressive attempt to shift blame just as a resurfaced 20-second clip exposed a contradiction he can’t easily walk away from.
The trouble began when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley — not Hegseth — had given the order for the second strike that killed two survivors floating in the water after their vessel was destroyed.
She insisted the attack was “self defense” and “within the law,” despite the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual explicitly prohibiting the targeting of shipwrecked survivors.
When pressed on the contradiction, Leavitt sidestepped specifics and repeated her scripted assurances.
Her explanation immediately drew disbelief across social media.
“Self defense? Are you kidding me??” one user demanded, while another wrote, “If the U.S. can’t defend itself against two people floating on wreckage, we deserve to be taken over. It was a war crime.”
But Leavitt wasn’t finished. She also reiterated Trump’s claim that Hegseth “did not order the death of those two men,” despite The Washington Post’s extensive reporting that Hegseth had given a spoken command to “kill everybody,” which Bradley then relayed.
Her remarks marked a complete reversal from earlier in the week, when the administration dismissed the entire story as “fake news.”
Hours later, in a statement posted to X, Hegseth praised Admiral Bradley in language critics immediately recognized as a backhanded, blame-shifting maneuver.
“Let’s make one thing crystal clear,” he wrote. “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero… I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.”
Reactions across the web were blistering. One commentor kicked it off, “Hegseth’s statement is one of the worst self serving back stabbing buck passing cop outs I’ve ever heard.”
“The White House just threw Admiral Bradley under the bus. He needs to lawyer up,” one person wrote.
“If Admiral Bradley didn’t realize before that these cowards were setting him up to take the fall, he knows it now. Time to hire a good lawyer,” one person wrote.
Others argued he was complicit, “Wow. A 34 year career potentially ending with a prison sentence and the stripping of his military pension. All because he acted on orders from an unqualified SecDef which he knew to be illegal. As a retired Navy Veteran I have no sympathy for him.”
But as Hegseth attempted to paint Bradley as the sole decision-maker, a 20-second clip from earlier in the fall resurfaced — footage of Hegseth himself, speaking on Fox & Friends the morning after the strike, sounding proud and animated as he recounted what he witnessed.
“I watched it live,” he said. “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing.”
The reactions were instant and incredulous.
“Wait — he knew what was going on and watched it live, but on 12/1 he said he didn’t know what was happening?” one viewer wrote.
“It’s like they’ve never heard of recordings or video,” another added. “Watched it live. This is an admission it happened under his watch and he’s liable for the crime,” someone noted.
Others framed it as the smoking gun the White House hoped wouldn’t surface. “Of course he watched it live. And you know he gave that order… He’s cooked. He knows it. They’ll pressure the Admiral to fall on his sword but the tangible evidence will show differently.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers in both parties have intensified calls for classified briefings, documents, and a full legal justification for the strikes. Military law experts have labeled the killing of survivors a textbook violation of international and U.S. military law. And Bradley, now publicly named and implicitly blamed, is scheduled to brief Congress privately later this week — with many viewers predicting his next move will make headlines of its own.
“This should be a wake-up call to every member of the military,” one user warned. “They will absolutely throw you under ALL THE BUSES to save themselves.”
For now, though, the most damaging development remains the one Hegseth brought on himself — a short, forgotten clip in which he proudly described watching the attack unfold in real time, unaware it would return months later to undercut every denial, every deflection, and every attempt to redirect blame.
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