Rand Paul Drags Pete Hegseth: Either Lying to Us or Incompetent
Republican Senator Rand Paul offered some scathing criticism of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s efforts to push responsibility for the September 2 boat bombings away from himself and President Trump and onto Admiral Frank Bradley.
“In this sense, it looks to me like they’re trying to pin the blame on somebody else and not them,” Paul told reporters Tuesday evening. “There’s a very distinct statement [that] was said on Sunday—Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this and it did not happen. It was fake news, it didn’t happen. And then the next day from the podium at the White House, they’re saying it did happen.”
“So either he was lying to us on Sunday, or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened,” he continued. “Do we think there’s any chance that on Sunday the secretary of the defense did not know there’d been a second strike?”
Paul: Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this and it did not happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the white house, they’re saying it did happen. So either he was lying to us on Sunday or he’s incompetent pic.twitter.com/YnVZvKE5Kq
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 3, 2025
The growing Republican criticism comes as Hegseth and the Trump administration zero in on their version of events for whether the boat bombing actually happened (it did), and who in particular gave the order for a second strike to kill the two survivors seen clinging to the wreckage after the first bombing. At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Hegseth claimed that he didn’t know there were survivors after the first strike, adding that the “fog of war” would’ve made it difficult to determine if anyone had survived. He passed responsibility for the decision entirely on to Bradley.
The administration’s explanation for committing what very well may be a war crime has been so botched and sloppy that it made Paul remember he’s a libertarian. And on his question of Hegseth’s incompetence or stupidity, the answer seems to be both.
