CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins was taken aback Tuesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s “telling” remark on his boat strikes during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.
“I think what was most striking to me is what Jim [Sciutto] was just referencing there, which was the comment by Secretary Hegseth when he was directly asked if he was aware that there were survivors after that first initial strike happened during this boat strike that happened on Sept. 2, the one that has generated so much controversy here in Washington and even has Republicans on Capitol Hill now demanding answers about how this went down,” Collins said.
“And I thought what was really telling there was he was asked about a comment that Secretary Hegseth had made in the aftermath of this strike,” she added.
“Remember, at that time, the administration had released about 30 seconds of a video that the president had posted of this strike. That is something that did not show the second subsequent strike that happened there,” she said.
“And Secretary Hegseth was asked, given he said at the time that he watched this strike happen live from obviously his situation [room] at the Pentagon. If he had seen that second strike actually take place. And I want you to listen to what the Secretary had to say about the timeline here, because I think this is critical information and is also something that we have not heard yet from the Defense Department,” Collins added.
Hegseth had criticized the press asking him questions during the cabinet meeting, and also revealed something unknown — that he wasn’t present when the second strike was ordered.
“So I said ‘I’m going to be the one to make the call’ after getting all the information and making sure it’s the right strike,” Hegseth said. “That was Sept. 2…. I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we’ve got a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my meeting.”
He also said that he did not see any survivors during the second strike, and put the “onus back on Admiral Bradley,” she added.
“I did not personally see survivors, but I stand… because the thing was on fire. It was exploded. Fire and smoke. You can’t see anything, you’ve got digital… This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand,” Hegseth said, criticizing the reporters and press.
Collins said this new information could prompt more questions from Congress.
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