US lawmaker threatens to withhold Hegseth’s travel funds unless he releases boat strike video
'Congress will withhold a big chunk of his travel budget until he does so,' says Chuck Schumer, urging defense secretary to reveal footage of 'his reckless and dangerous' strikes
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
WASHINGTON
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday reiterated his call for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release the full video of a second strike on suspected drug smugglers off Venezuela, warning about Pentagon travel funds.
"Pete Hegseth must release the unedited videos of his reckless and dangerous strikes in the Caribbean.
"Congress will withhold a big chunk of his travel budget until he does so. The American people deserve full transparency," Schumer said on the US social media company X’s platform.
His remarks came as Congress is seeking to freeze a portion of Hegseth’s travel budget until the Pentagon turns over video footage of the second strike from the Sept. 2 incident, which is at the center of allegations that two survivors clinging to wreckage of their boat may have been killed. Last week, the administration showed the video only to some members of Congress in a closed session.
The House of Representatives on Sunday night rolled out a sweeping defense policy package that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the next fiscal year.
It would freeze a quarter of Hegseth’s office travel budget until the House and Senate Armed Services committees are given “unedited video of strikes carried out against designated terrorist organizations within the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility.”
US President Donald Trump said Monday that he will defer to Hegseth to determine whether to release the full video of the second strike, stepping back from his remarks made last week, when he told reporters: "I don't know what they have, but whatever they have would certainly (be) released. No problem."
Hegseth, addressing a forum in the state of California on Saturday, declined to confirm whether the video would be released, despite Trump’s previous statements.
“We are reviewing the process, and we’ll see,” he said.
The Sept. 2 strike was the first of 22 that the Pentagon has carried out, killing more than 85 people. Hegseth, in his remarks Saturday, said the strikes will continue.
While the administration maintains that the strike was lawful and necessary, members of Congress and legal experts have raised doubts, with some Democrats warning that targeting survivors could amount to a war crime.
