Secretary of War Pete Hegseth defended the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea on Friday. (Omar Havana/Getty Images)
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital he was "very, very, very supportive of killing drug dealers. I think the more narco-terrorists that we kill, that we save American lives."
"I'm not concerned about killing people whose intent was to kill Americans at all," Moreno said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Hegseth gave the green light for the second strike, but noted that it was Adm. Frank Bradley, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, who ordered and directed it.
That confirmation came after a report from The Washington Post claimed Hegseth had ordered to "kill them all," which some on the Hill have disputed.
Sen. Jack Reed listens during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 3, 2022. (Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said that since the report came out, "We want to get to the facts."
"Obviously, if there was a direction to take a second shot and kill people, that's a violation of an ethical, moral or legal code," Tillis said. "We need to get to the bottom of it. But right now, it could be, I think, was it Oxford that the word of the year is ‘rage bait'? Could be rage bait too. So we want to get to the facts."
Senate Democrats are demanding a fulsome dive into the incident, and toeing the line of whether what transpired was a war crime.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he expected to have a briefing with Bradley this week.
When asked what questions he wanted to be answered, Reed said the top priority was to find out whether the strikes comported with "the law of war and [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and international law."
"I think one of the easiest ways to begin to dispel the question is to make public the video of the strikes," Reed said.
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Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has, time and again this Congress, remained a staunch critic of action taken in Iran and in the Caribbean and moved to curtail the administration’s actions through resolutions that would stymie President Donald Trump’s war powers.
He said lawmakers needed to get to the bottom of "whether a war crime has been committed."
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., was cautious not to fully paint the incident as a war crime before getting more facts, adding that he hoped the reports of the strikes were "not accurate."
"I will say, though you know as somebody who has sunk two ships myself, that folks in the military need to understand, you know, the law of the sea, the Geneva Conventions, what the law says," Kelly said. "And I'm concerned that if there were, in fact, as reported, you know, survivors clinging to a damaged vessel, that could be, you know, over a line. I hope it's not the case."
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-fractures-over-hegseths-double-tap-caribbean-strike-congress-probes-legality