Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected calls to publicly release the full video of a U.S. military boat strike in early September 2025—the first of more than two dozen strikes on narcoterrorists—according to an X post by PBS NewsHour shared between 11:15 PM and 11:45 PM UTC on December 16. The same PBS NewsHour post noted that the Senate is debating and expected to pass its largest annual bill authorizing the Defense Department, with further details from @LisaDNews and @nickschifrin. Hegseth's rejection follows U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham's earlier statement calling for release of a September 2 strikes video amid questions on policy toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as reported in prior updates, in the context of U.S. Southern Command's Operation Southern Spear targeting regional drug trafficking.
