President Donald Trump and his administration are still in scramble mode as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveils yet another revision of his story.
After days of brutal headlines over a Sept. 2 boat strike that left two survivors “blown apart in the water,” Hegseth rolled out a brand-new version of events — one that flatly contradicts his own on-camera boast that he had “watched it live.”
Standing beside a groggy-looking President Donald Trump during a Cabinet Room appearance on Tuesday, Hegseth insisted he never actually saw the survivors and wasn’t aware a second strike had taken place until “a couple hours later.”
“I did not personally see survivors … that thing was on fire and was exploded,” he told reporters. “You got fire, smoke, you can’t see anything. This is called the fog of war.”
But that explanation detonated instantly across social media — because Hegseth himself had earlier boasted on Fox & Friends, “I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing.”
Within minutes, viewers were replaying that old clip and shredding his new version to pieces.
“He literally bragged, days ago, that they could see everything,” one person wrote.
“So while incapacitated by this mysterious fog you left the room and everyone else gave these orders before you could return… Dude — I lied better than that in 5th grade,” another added.
“Ol’ Pete Kegseth’s story keeps changing,” someone else said. “First it was fake news, then it was the admiral did it, and now it’s ‘I didn’t see the second strike.’ Everyone knows what that means — you’re lying.”
And the drumbeat of commentary turned darker: “Hegseth’s going to prison isn’t he?”
“You can see the terror in his eyes. He’s scared sh*tless
As Hegseth flailed, California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered the dose of reality he had been trying to meme his way out of.
Just one day after the Washington Post confirmed the second strike was carried out to fulfill Hegseth’s alleged “kill everybody” order — and outrage was exploding — Hegseth was bizarrely making light of the scandal, posting a Franklin the Turtle cartoon gleefully blasting “narco-terrorists” as if the crisis unfolding around him were a joke.
Newsom took that same tone, flipped it on its head, and turned it into a warning of the future Hegseth should fear most.
He posted a cartoon of a jailed cat with the caption: “JUST GO TO JAIL, PETE.”
One commenter responded, “Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.”
Another wrote: “Secretary of War (Crimes).” The meme launched 100 more memes illustrating Hegseth’s dark future.
Newsom’s hit landed at the worst possible moment for Hegseth — right as bipartisan committees in the House and Senate announced they had opened inquiries into whether the operation amounted to a war crime, and whether Hegseth is now trying to push blame down the chain of command.
Officials close to the Senate Armed Services Committee told CNN they are particularly troubled by evidence suggesting survivors were targeted while defenseless — a violation of U.S. law and international law. Republican Sen. Mark Kelly warned, “If what’s been reported is accurate, I’ve got serious concerns… We are not Russia.”
Hegseth, sensing political danger, leaned harder on Admiral Frank Bradley, the commander who relayed the order. He claimed Bradley “made the correct decision” and was “well within his authority,” even as officials in Congress and Pentagon fear that Bradley is now being used as the scapegoat by the administration.
Press Secratary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, gave a tense briefing earlier in the week. She nervously confirmed Bradley ordered the second strike — a direct reversal of the administration’s “fake news” claims days earlier — and tried to claim the killing of men clinging to wreckage was “self defense.”
Reporters pressed and pressed and Leavitt looked rattled. But she stuck rigidly to her prepared script, lips pursed, taking deep breaths, repeating the administration’s line that Bradley was “well within his authority and the law” — even though the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual explicitly states that firing on the wounded or shipwrecked is strictly prohibited.
“Again, as I said, I think you guys are sort of not listening fully to the statement I’ve provided,” Leavitt nervously replied. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was totally destroyed and the threat to the narco-terrorists to the United States was eliminated and for any further questions about his thinking I would refer you to the Department of War.”
Trump’s so-called “war on narco-terrorists” has so far resulted in at least 22 attacks on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific that the Pentagon claims were carrying drugs, killing more than 80 people, according to NBC News.
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