Paul: ‘To Order the Killing of People Shipwrecked Is Clearly Illegal’Pam Key 9 Dec 2025
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said if Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of people shipwrecked, it was “clearly illegal.”
Host John Roberts said, “The president had said earlier, a about a week earlier, that he would have no problem with the second video coming out. Do you believe it should be released Senator?”
Paul said, “Yes without question. I think if people were to see the images of people clinging to the wreckage, there would not be much sympathy for Secretary Hegseth. To order the killing of people shipwrecked is clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military laws. And, you know, I have members of my staff who were high ranking in the military, and they tell me this is done for the protection of our soldiers. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don’t shoot people. We don’t shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors we don’t shoot those people. We don’t sidle up in a boat and take a nine millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that.”
“But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn’t make it any more right,” he continued. “But it’s clearly against our laws of war. And even deeper than that, there is a question of our unarmed people that are smugglers part of a war? Are we in the middle of a war with unarmed people? Why don’t they present evidence that they’re in arms? Why don’t they present evidence that these boats are even coming to the United States? These are small motorboats, often 2000 miles from our shore. If they have drugs, which hasn’t been proven, if they have drugs, are probably taking it to neighboring islands. So this is a crazy thing that we’ve never done before. And to make a crime and to war is to stretch credulity to the point that I think a lot of commonsense people don’t buy it.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2025/12/09/sen-paul-to-order-the-killing-of-people-shipwrecked-is-clearly-illegal/
