Updated on: November 30, 2025 / 5:30 PM EST / CBS News
Washington — Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Sunday that reporting that a U.S. follow-on strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat earlier this year killed survivors “rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true.” Kaine made the comment on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.
The Washington Post reported Friday that during the Sept. 2 strike in the Caribbean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly gave a verbal order to leave no survivors, and that a subsequent strike killed two people in the water. Hegseth has called the story “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory,” saying U.S. operations in the Caribbean are lawful under U.S. and international law. CBS News has not independently confirmed the Post’s reporting.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit targeting civilians and wounded personnel and require that the wounded be collected and cared for. A group of former military lawyers said Saturday that the reported follow-on strike would violate international or domestic law, and leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees have pledged investigations.
Aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump said he did not know whether the reported second strike occurred and quoted Hegseth as saying he “didn’t order the death of those two men.” Trump added that he would look into the matter and said he would not have wanted a second strike, calling the first strike “very lethal.”
Since the Sept. 2 strike, the U.S. has carried out nearly two dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Kaine said lawmakers have pressed the administration for proof that those aboard were narcotics traffickers, questioned why vessels were struck rather than interdicted, and sought the legal justification for strikes conducted in international waters. He described the administration’s legal rationale as “very shoddy,” saying Congress must restrain a president “deciding to wage war on his own say-so.”
Kaine has twice pursued war powers resolutions to block strikes on Venezuela and said he would act quickly on a new resolution if ground operations were ordered. The administration has stepped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the president posted on Truth Social that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered “CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that Congress does not have information confirming the reported follow-on strike. “If that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Turner said.
Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.