Democratic members of Congress united Sunday to call for the release of footage of a strike against survivors to dispute the Republican defense of the Sept. 2 operation against a Venezuelan vessel.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) reiterated his stance supporting the subsequent strike against the vessel, which was allegedly trafficking drugs. Immediately after being briefed by Adm. Mitch Bradley, who was in charge of the operation, Cotton told reporters that “the first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on Sept. 2, entirely lawful.” Cotton repeated his support Sunday on NBC News’s Meet the Press.
“[The two survivors] were sitting or standing on top of a capsized boat. They weren’t floating helplessly on the water, and of course, I don’t think it matters all that much what they were trying to do,” Cotton said.
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“It doesn’t really matter what they were trying to do. What matters is that they were not in a shipwreck state, distressed, dog-paddling in the water at all. And therefore that boat, its cargo, and those drug traffickers remained valid targets,” Cotton added.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was not in the control room when Bradley ordered the second strike.
Shortly after Cotton’s segment, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) appeared on the same program to dispute Cotton’s analysis.
“[These strikes are] unlawful. They’re unconstitutional, and killing two people who are shipwrecked at sea is morally repugnant,” Schiff said.
“And frankly, if the Pentagon and our defense secretary are so proud of what they’re doing, let the American people see that video. Let the American people see two people standing on a capsized boat, or sitting on a capsized boat, and deliberately killed and decide for themselves whether they’re proud of what the country is doing. I can’t imagine people would be proud of that,” Schiff added.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) responded to Cotton on Sunday on CBS News’s Face the Nation to insist that the survivors who were targeted in the second strike were not “legitimate targets.”
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“As many times as Tom Cotton may say it doesn’t matter what they were doing, it matters essentially what they were doing,” Himes said of the survivors. “Attacking them is a violation of the laws of war. This is why the American people need to see this video: These guys were barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities.”
Himes: “As many times as Tom Cotton may say it doesn’t matter what they were doing, it matters essentially what they were doing … these guys were barely alive much less engaging in hostilities” pic.twitter.com/lSJhVUuIrW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 7, 2025
President Donald Trump signaled he is willing to release the footage of this second strike on Sept. 2. However, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) appeared on ABC News’s This Week on Sunday to challenge the likelihood that the footage will be released.
“It seems pretty clear that they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it because it’s very, very difficult to justify,” Smith said. “And again, big issue here is President Trump’s dragging us into a foreign conflict when we have domestic issues that we’re supposed to be paying attention to, that we need to be paying attention to. It’s directly contrary to the campaign that President Trump ran.”
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Cotton, the only veteran politician among the above-mentioned politicians, also said Sunday he doesn’t “have any problem with” releasing the footage of the second strike. Trump himself already shared footage of the first strike on social media.
“It’s not gruesome. I didn’t find it distressing or disturbing,” Cotton said of the footage. “It looks like any number of a dozen of strikes we’ve seen on Jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years.”
, 2025-12-07 20:37:00, 
, Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Jenny Goldsberry
