The 'double-tap' order: killing survivors of a Caribbean boat strike

Editor's note: former military lawyers and a former defense secretary describe the second strike as unlawful, but no court or official finding establishes it.

On September 2, 2025, in the first strike of the administration's campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats, U.S. forces struck a vessel and then struck it a second time, killing two men who had survived the initial attack and were in the water. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth had given a verbal order to 'kill everybody' and that the operation's commander, Adm. Frank Bradley, ordered the follow-up strike to carry it out. Hegseth and Bradley deny such an order was given, and Trump has said Hegseth told him he did not give it.

Military-law experts, former officials, and members of Congress said that targeting shipwrecked survivors is unlawful. The Former JAGs Working Group said orders to 'kill everybody' and to 'double-tap' survivors are 'clearly illegal under international law' and amount to 'war crimes, murder, or both,' and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called the second strike a war crime, noting the rules of war forbid striking wounded people in the water. The White House said the strike was lawful self-defense conducted in international waters.

Congress opened investigations, and members of both parties pressed for the unedited video, which the Pentagon showed to select committees while declining a broader release. This entry documents Hegseth's specific role in the follow-up strike; the wider campaign of more than 20 strikes that killed upwards of 80 people, and its bypassing of Congress's war powers, is documented at DEF-09.