Even The New York Times Isn’t Sold On Washington Post Hegseth Hit

Even The New York Times isn’t buying The Washington Post’s hit piece attacking War Secretary Pete Hegseth and claiming that he gave an order to “kill them all,” authorizing a second missile strike on a Venezuelan drug boat when survivors were in the water.

The Post’s “exclusive” — which ran on Saturday — painted a picture of two survivors, helplessly clinging to the remnants of their destroyed vessel as a second strike was ordered to ensure they were killed. Citing anonymous sources, the outlet walked right up to the line, but stopped just short of directly accusing Hegseth of executing the two survivors in the water.

What followed immediately was absolutely predictable: anchors and guests across the legacy media Sunday shows stepped across the line even WaPo wouldn’t, accusing Hegseth of committing war crimes and claiming those who carried out his orders might also be held to account for doing so.

But The New York Times was not quite ready to go all in on the accusation, and instead cited five officials who said that while Hegseth’s initial order was to deliver a lethal strike — which would destroy the vessel and the drugs and kill those onboard — there was no specific order given regarding how to proceed if the first strike did not fully accomplish that.

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In addition, the officials told the NYT that there was no second command from Hegseth ordering another strike when drone footage showed survivors in the water. Instead, they said that the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, had ordered several follow-up strikes to sink the boat that was disabled by the first hit — and that the survivors were killed as those strikes were carried out.

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway noted that while it certainly tracked that WaPo had run with the story in the first place, it seemed slightly off routine for the NYT to hold back.

“It is not surprising that the WashPost, which originated the Russia collusion hoax, the Kavanaugh hoax, and the first Trump impeachment hoax, would run another false info op. It IS a bit surprising that the NYT isn’t going along with it in their normal manner,” she said.

The White House’s account of what happened squares with the NYT report, however, as Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Monday’s briefing that there had been multiple strikes on the drug boat in question, but that the orders had come from Admiral Frank M. Bradley, not Hegseth.

Hegseth followed that revelation with an X post declaring his support for Bradley, saying, “Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this @DeptofWar says we have the back of our warriors — we mean it.”