Covering their backsides (assholes).....

Republicans are covering their backsides on the double-tap strike

Analysis by Aaron Blake

After reports Friday that the US had conducted a second strike on a suspected drug vessel, killing survivors of its first strike – quite possibly in violation of the law of armed conflict – few defended the Trump administration more strongly than Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida.

Gimenez wagered Monday on Fox Business Network that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “had nothing to do with something like that.” He suggested it was all an elaborate distraction.

“So, I’m with the president on this one,” Gimenez said. “I don’t believe the reports.”

Just hours later, though, the White House effectively confirmed those reports. And when he appeared Tuesday morning on CNN, Gimenez was a little more circumspect.

“If the mission was just to have a second strike to kill the survivors, that’s questionable,” the Florida Republican said, while still more broadly defending the concept of the initial strikes.

As we continue to learn more about the so-called double-tap strike, the GOP has been reluctant to completely vouch for Hegseth or the administration. (President Donald Trump said Tuesday that neither he nor Hegseth knew about the second strike, the day after the White House said Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley had made the decision.)

While few Republicans have strongly criticized the administration, an increasing number seem to be allowing that the allegations are quite troublesome.

And they seem to be tailoring their comments carefully ahead of promised congressional investigations. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said he wouldn’t “prejudge” the details of the incident and has broadly defended the administration, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday that “Congress has a right to look at it.”

The chair and vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Tuesday they’ll be meeting with Bradley later this week.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday wouldn’t say directly whether he has confidence in Hegseth when pressed by Raju, saying, “I think that the fundamental question is, is the country safer than it was under the Biden administration? I think the answer to that is unequivocally yes.”

Some of the strongest skepticism of the second strike and Hegseth’s role has come, perhaps unsurprisingly, from Sen. Rand Paul, who has cosponsored resolutions to block unauthorized military action in the Caribbean and in Venezuela. On Tuesday, the Kentucky Republican accused the secretary of defense of either lying in his initial public response to reports about the double-tap strike or being incompetent.

And he suggested that Hegseth is trying to pass the blame to Bradley.

“I don’t like to see political figures pointing their finger at military figures. Military people take orders. And there’s a question about, you know, when they don’t take orders, whether things are legal or not legal, but in this sense, it looks to me like they’re trying to pin the blame on somebody else and not them,” Paul told CNN.

Hegseth — who said on Tuesday he had watched the first strike live but had “moved on” to other meetings during the second strike — has reiterated that he stands by Bradley in a way that also distances himself.

Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia — whose state backed Trump by more than 40 points last year — provided one of the more surprisingly tough statements for the administration.

He told Semafor that the second strike was “just not acceptable” and that, while he likes Hegseth, “if he made that decision, I think he’s made a bad decision.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina seemed to question the administration’s suggestion Monday that the survivors posed some kind of threat after the first attack.

“It’s a long-held rule that survivors of the ship attack are no longer combatants, and an air crew member in a parachute is no longer a combatant. You’re out of the fight,” the Trump ally told Raju. “I don’t know what the facts are, but that’s general law.”

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” of a second strike to kill survivors: “If that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act.”

But all in all, it shouldn’t be too surprising that these Republicans aren’t resolutely defending the administration.

For one, there is plenty we don’t know about all of this. And Hegseth has certainly demonstrated a talent for giving the administration and his fellow Republicans problems. We still don’t have a full resolution on “Signal-gate,” in which he shared sensitive military attack plans on an unclassified app.

Secondly, the administration seemed to struggle to get its narrative out there, allowing Republicans to twist in the wind before it ultimately confirmed the reports three days later.

But the third reason is perhaps more underappreciated right now. And it’s that Trump himself has suggested that a second strike would be wrong.

Before the White House confirmed the reporting on Monday, Trump said Sunday night that he “wouldn’t have wanted that — a second strike.” The president on Tuesday distanced himself, saying: “I didn’t know about the second strike. I didn’t know about people. I wasn’t involved, and I knew they took out a boat, but I would say this, they had a strike,” before adding that he’d start land strikes “soon.”

That leaves Republicans in an uncomfortable position of having to reconcile a double-tap strike that’s obviously problematic, and that Trump initially acknowledged as such. No, he hasn’t said it was a war crime, but he has said it wasn’t something he wanted. So how do you pretend there’s nothing to see here?

The White House and the Trump administration’s strategy here seems to be oscillating between that “nothing to see here” approach and trying to scapegoat Bradley, if it ultimately comes to that.

But that leaves Republicans with unclear instructions on how to handle the whole situation. And so far, that’s led to a jumbled response in which the only unifying message seems to be covering your own backside.