Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the apparent war crime was legal even as she said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knew nothing about it.
The White House on Monday shifted the blame for killing the survivors of a U.S. military strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and onto the commanding admiral.
Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, nevertheless, repeatedly stated that it was legal – even as she further claimed, as Donald Trump did Sunday, that Hegseth was unaware that it had happened.
I guess we can add “war criminal” or straight up “murderer” to Trump’s list of accomplishments. It’s his administration.
Yes, this is literally every president.
True, but politics is always going to be messy. Even if Bernie Sanders took the office, I’m sure he’d have to make lots of awful decisions. But even though Obama authorized drone strikes, I doubt he ever gave orders to kill everyone, or just arbitrarily struck fishing boats because he got off on it. Maybe Obama is a war criminal, but I think he really did feel bad about it. It’s been established that Trump very literally, as in literally literally gets aroused by deporting people.
If only he was closer to his predecessors in other ways too.