Rep. Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee was one of only a few legislators in a classified briefing on the September 2nd bombing of a boat in the Caribbean Ocean. Himes was able to watch the full, unedited video of the attack and hear testimony from Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the Navy commander who oversaw the operation. Himes spoke with Jen Psaki about the shocking details of the video and what he learned that contradicts some of the key elements of the Trump administration’s story about what happened.

​JEN PSAKI, MS NOW HOST: There’s been so much public reporting that has been conflicting. One of the reasons it’s so helpful to talk to you is to help maybe provide some clarity to the degree you can. Secretary Hegseth said this week he didn’t personally see the survivors in the video. He said the boat exploded in fire and smoke and that you really couldn’t see anything. He said it’s called the fog of war. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you described, but what do you make of that characterization now that you’ve seen the video? REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Yeah, well, again, a little bit of context here. You know, about a week after this strike, the Congress was briefed on this strike, and the question was raised, why did you go after the survivors? Why was there more strikes taken? And the answer was because we wanted to clear the sea for safety of navigation. I asked the admiral why the story was totally different now, and he had no answer. And by the way, I don’t blame the admiral for not having that answer, because, you know, clearly this is a utter disarray. What Pete Hegseth said with respect to the fog of war is simply inaccurate. And by the way, Pete Hegseth, of course, given the report that came out today, is hardly a credible source. But I watched the video, and yes, of course, clouds went by, but this went on for a period of many hours. And we were therefore able to very closely observe these individuals for a lengthy period of time. And so, no, this was not a fog of war issue. Again, the argument is made, and the argument was made, that would not stand up to the machine gunning of U.S. sailors by Japanese naval forces in World War II, which is, my gosh, they might have actually been able someday to complete their mission. They might have called for help and gotten picked up. This feels to me like an analogous case. And just because they’re bad guys, and I suspect they probably were, although I suspect they were probably out-of-work fishermen who took 400 bucks to run a boat up to Trinidad, just because they were bad guys, just because they might have gone back into the fight, none of that gives you defense against the legal obligation in the laws of war not to attack them, and in fact, under maritime law, to render assistance. Under maritime law, a vessel in the area must render assistance to distressed mariners. Instead, we killed them.

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