Welcome to The Beat. I'm Melissa Murray in for Ari Melburgh, and we begin tonight with the growing

scandal about an alleged war crime that is engulfing the Trump administration. It involves a military

airstrike back in September, the first in what Trump officials claim is a campaign targeting

suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean.

The Washington Post reports that as officials watched the boat on a drone feed,

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeseth gave the order,

Kill Them All, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation.

But after the smoke cleared from the missile strike, there was a shock. Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The post reports that, quote, the special operations commander ordered

a second strike to comply with Hegset's instructions. The two men were blown apart in the water,

two people familiar with the matter said.

Now, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are saying that if the Washington Post's reporting is

true, the strike is illegal.

Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious. And I agree that that that would

be an illegal act. Going after survivors

in the water, that is clearly not lawful. If that reporting is true, it's a clear violation of the

DOD's own laws of war. And so this rises to the level of a war crime. If it was as if the

article said, that is a violation of the law of war.

When people want to surrender, you don't kill them.

In fact, both American and international law would suggest that this was in fact an illegal strike.

The Pentagon's own manual for the laws of war says, quote,

persons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and

inhumane to make them the object of attack. And both the Senate and House Armed Services

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