Rachel Abrams

So based on what you just outlined, this first strike in September that destroys the boat, kills most of the people, but leaves a couple of survivors, that second strike that kills the remaining survivors because of the rules of war about not striking people that basically pose no imminent threat to you seems illegal on its face.

And that is why this Washington Post story catches everybody's attention.

What exactly do we know, though, about what Hegseth did or did not do in relation to that September 2nd strike?

Like, what do we know about the order he gave?

So basically what you're saying is that if the intent here from Bradley was to simply kill the two remaining survivors, it would be really pretty clear-cut what he had done and whether it was legal in terms of the laws of war.

But if he was aiming to sink the boat or destroy the drugs, which was also part of the initial mandate and order from Hegseth, that's where it gets a bit murkier, right?

How has the administration responded so far?

This all makes me wonder how this sort of thing would normally work.

Like, the legality of these strikes in this kind of detail is the thing at issue.

And so I'm curious about who is advising the people involved, like Commander Bradley or Pete Hegseth, about what is legal and what is not in the moment.

So, Charlie, what would the legal rationale be for Bradley to order that second strike?

Like, what would that be based on?

Because if Commander Bradley did that second strike in order to target the drugs on the boat and the killing of the two survivors was collateral damage, then theoretically that could be a defense under what the DOJ laid out as kosher, right?

It sounds like there are compelling reasons why the killing of the survivors of that initial strike could be a war crime if the intent was to kill them, which we do not know.

And in fact, there is so much that we don't know that we cannot say it sounds like anything definitively.

And because of that, I am reminded of the video that those six Democratic lawmakers released a couple weeks ago, which urged service members to ignore illegal orders.

Given everything that we've discussed, how are service members supposed to understand what is legal and what is not?

Right.

And just to be clear, when the lawmakers made that video, were they aware of any of this?

Were they talking about this?