Admiral denied Hegseth gave ‘kill everybody’ order in briefing to lawmakers
12/04/25 03:00 PM ET
Defense
Navy Adm. Frank Bradley, the commander who oversaw the
Sept. 2 strikes on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, denied that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered his subordinates to “kill everybody” aboard the vessel during briefings to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The denial
follows a report from The Washington Post last week that the Pentagon chief gave a spoken directive to “kill everybody” ahead of the U.S. military’s Sept. 2 attack against an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, an operation where 11 “narco-terrorists” were killed.
Both Hegseth and the White House have denied that he gave such an order to Bradley, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, not to give no quarter or to kill them all. He was given an order that, of course, was written down in great detail, as our military always does,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters after the Thursday closed-door, classified briefing with Bradley and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, Gen. Dan Caine.
Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, gave the same account of Bradley’s testimony.
“The admiral confirmed that there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and that there was not an order to ‘grant no quarter,’” Himes
said on Thursday.
Still, Himes said that he was “deeply” troubled by the Defense Department’s attack on Sept. 2, in which the U.S. military
conducted four strikes, killing 11 and sinking the boat.
“I reviewed the video, and it’s deeply, deeply troubling,” Himes said. “The fact is that we killed two people who were in deep distress and had neither the means nor obviously the intent to continue their mission.”
Congress is looking into what the military’s reasoning was for ordering the second strike against the boat and what order Hegseth gave. Democrats are pressing the Trump administration to release the full video of the attack, along with written directives and orders from the Pentagon chief. President Trump has expressed openness for the video to be released.
Some legal experts have said that the attack would be a crime if the survivors were targeted, an argument that Cotton pushed back on after the briefing.
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2 were entirely lawful and needful and they were exactly what we expect our military commanders to do,” Cotton said.