Boat strikes: War crime or “fake news” hoax?

Bob Woodward reported in “Fear” that Donald Trump once offered a friend accused of sexual harassment a simple strategy: “You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back… if you admit to anything, you’re dead.”

That has since become the ethos of his MAGA movement. Today, anything that threatens Trump’s power, reputation or fragile ego is instantly alchemized into a hoax. “Every scandal you hear about Trump is a media hoax designed to destroy him,” Charlie Kirk told his MAGA audience. Right-wing media simply refuses to tolerate andy and all facts that disrupt the narrative ecosystem they’ve built around Trump. And now this machinery of denial is being used to excuse war crimes.

Even as the evidence of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ghastliness grows, with Republican lawmakers calling into question his competence and even conservative legal scholars warning that the laws of armed conflict have repeatedly been broken under his watch, MAGA media appears imperviously sealed within a bubble of denial. The right no longer debates truth. ​​So when Hegseth — himself a former Fox News host — oversees the slaughter of over 83 people for no reason other than they were “suspected” of having drugs on their boat, the media machine he built around him rushed to dismiss the killings as the latest “hoax” perpetrated by “fake news.”

Indeed, there’s a long litany of supposed hoaxes that far-right propagandists deploy on command, like a religious catechism. Climate change? Hoax. Trump’s stolen-documents scandal? Hoax. Charlottesville white nationalist rally? Hoax. The Trump–Epstein connection? Hoax. The affordability crisis? Now even that is a hoax.

But clearly the most chilling example is the worsening scandal around the military strikes on boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific. In a letter made public by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the Coast Guard admitted that “21% of boarded boats don’t have drugs on them” and that in more than 200 interdictions last year, they were not once required to use deadly force. Yet when two people survived a first strike by the U.S. military on Sept. 2 and were seen clinging to the wreckage, a second missile strike was launched specifically to kill them, reportedly under orders from Hegseth.

The Daily Caller, the right-wing publication founded by Tucker Carlson years ago and now a loyal MAGA mouthpiece, has promoted Hegseth’s “fog of war” excuses and published articles arguing that the strikes are being “misinterpreted” by mainstream media. Breitbart dismissed the Washington Post’s initial report as “a fabricated hit job on patriots defending our borders,” while Newsmax and OANN referred to the story as the “Venezuela boat hoax” and “another anti-military hoax by the deep-state press.” Even after the White House confirmed the core facts, MAGA media outlets didn’t correct themselves, but reflexively shifted from claims of falsehood to justification.

“We’re not going to let the fake-news media tie our warfighters’ hands again,” Hegseth blustered when confronted by reporters at the White House earlier this week. As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte lays out, Hegseth is perfect for right-wing media: a former soldier turned cable-news talking head who’s now in charge of lethal force, he’s macho, militaristic and ideologically aligned, with the “Central Casting” looks favored by Trump.

“This is what happens when you try to make the military lethal again,” lamented Fox News’ Jesse Watters, “the left cries war crimes.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the most hawkish voices in Congress, picked a fight with Pope Leo over the need for U.S.-led regime change in Venezuela.

But in keeping with recent trends across a range of issues, some Republicans and right-wing personalities have broken ranks.

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“This is a war crime,” Judge Andrew Napolitano said of the attack. “It gives me no pleasure to say what I’m about to say because I worked with Pete Hegseth for seven or eight years at Fox News… Everybody along the line who did it… should be prosecuted.” The Wall Street Journal called for a congressional inquiry. Even top Trump sycophant Laura Loomer is warning against “war-profiteering stupidity.”

Possibly the biggest lie amid all the lies of Trumpism — one that is amplified endlessly by right-wing media — is that Trump is somehow against war and against corruption. The reality is entirely the opposite: He has expanded presidential war powers, revived the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans and others with no due process, ignored court orders and imposed tariffs for arbitrary, personal reasons, including an attempt to save Brazil’s right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro, from a lengthy prison term for attempting a coup.

But as his coalition continues to crumble, right-wing media is sticking to the core message: If Trump or his allies do it, it’s good. If the media reports it, it’s fake. If critics object, it’s a hoax.