Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
Republicans are once again circling the wagons around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as he faces backlash for ordering the military to kill survivors of a missile strike in the Caribbean Sea.
Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri had the most full-throated defense of Hegseth, writing on X that “Democrats never wanted [Hegseth]. He was and is a threat to permanent Washington’s status quo.”
Schmitt continued, “And for their next act? —They want him tried for war crimes. Yep—war crimes. They intend to prosecute another political opponent. They have lost it. Congressional Democrats are fueled by a radicalized Leftist base and are hellbent on power. The rules don’t matter to them. At all.”
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma was eager to defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma also piled on, saying that there surely was a reason for the two survivors of the boat strike to be summarily killed—even without having seen any evidence.
“If there was a second strike, it wouldn’t be to just simply take out the survivors. It’s because there was still a threat or opportunity for them to run,” Mullin said during an appearance on Fox News.
And, true to form, House Speaker Mike Johnson played dumb when asked if he thinks it was a war crime.
“I’m not going to prejudge any of that. I was pretty busy yesterday. I didn’t follow a lot of the news,” Johnson told reporters, using his favorite deflection technique.
Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas had the most eyebrow-raising response to Hegseth’s role in the alleged war crimes.
“I can’t recall any time in my history of doing counterterrorism operations where we strike a group, whether that’s a building or a boat or a vehicle, and then we were, like, ‘Oh, well, there’s survivors. We have to go. We can’t kill them.’ Of course we killed them,” Crenshaw said.
The only Republicans who refused to defend Hegseth’s conduct are the ones who no longer have anything to lose, such as retiring Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
As always, House Speaker Mike Johnson played dumb when asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s apparent war crimes.
“If someone knowingly launched a second missile at that boat, which led to the deaths of the other two, then they have to be held accountable, and they shouldn’t be in whatever role they’re in,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Aside from defending Hegseth’s oversight of war crimes, Republicans are also backing him after a long-awaited inspector general report found that he endangered the lives of U.S. troops with his irresponsible leaked Signal war plan group chats.
Hegseth “created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots,” the report states.
“Based on this particular allegation, which is now several months old, I think the secretary is in a pretty good position on that,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker told CNN’s Manu Raju.
Of course, it comes as no surprise that most Republicans are raging hypocrites who will defend the indefensible because President Donald Trump wants them to.
When Hegseth’s irresponsible Signal chat fiasco first became public, Republicans in Congress wasted no time defending him.
And they seem to be doing the same now.