Trump and his Secretary might be committing war crimes, but if you close your eyes and yell ‘fake news’ loud enough, accountability disappears

The neat thing about Donald Trump‘s burgeoning second administration is that he and his cronies have finally cracked the code. Commit the crime, raise the “fake news” cry, and wait approximately 48 hours for the next scandal to make everyone forget about the last one.

That’s precisely how Pete Hegseth, the so-called Secretary of War, is weathering this latest maelstrom of controversy, not by addressing it, but by banking on MAGA’s collective inclination to nod along while Trump does as he pleases.

Here’s the story, stripped to its bones. According to a new report by The Washington Post, during a surveillance operation in September involving a boat sailing in the Caribbean, Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive to “kill everybody” on board. This suspected narcotics vessel was among the first of many targeted by the US military over the past two months as part of what the Pentagon is dubbing “lethal, kinetic” operations designed to “kill the narco-terrorists.”

The first strike turned the boat into a blazing mess, but per Hegseth’s order, the military performed a second strike to eliminate the two survivors clinging to the wreckage, which, according to TWP’s source, “were blown apart in the water.”

The military’s campaign against these unproven drug vessels have already resulted in the deaths of more than 80 people, an initiative, which, according to former military lawyer Todd Huntley, would constitute war crimes. Huntley said that Hegseth’s directive would “in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime” according to the Geneva Conventions.

Rep. Seth Moulton, an outspoken Trump critic, did away with the euphemisms and said it more plainly: “Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”

And now for the all-too–familiar dodge

There was an attempt by the Pentagon to retroactively justify the killings by claiming that the follow-on strike was intended to “sink the boat and remove a navigation hazard to other vessels,” which is nearly as absurd as all the other justifications Trump has come up with to go after Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro over the past few months.

What’s chilling isn’t the event itself, but how the Trump administration is marketing it to Congress and the rest of the nation. The president himself posted a video of the strike on his Truth social page, and White House communications director Steven Cheung added the caption: “It was at this moment, the narco-terrorists knew they screwed up.” Because in 2025, nothing says ‘leader of the free world’ like turning inhumane executions into meme material.

Congress has ordered a probe into Pete Hegseth’s order, stating: “The Committee has directed inquires to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to the circumstances.”

As for the Secretary himself, Hegseth is retreating into the good old, reliable “fake news” security blanket, and the lesson to be learned is not so subtle anymore: You can potentially commit war crimes and dismiss it as media invention. And accountability and international law be damned.