WATCH: Keating says Trump administration ‘pirating Americans values’ with alleged drug boat killings

Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., lambasted the Trump administration’s “phony rationale” for its continued boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela that have raised the death toll to some 180 people.

The lawmaker said the justification for these U.S. military strikes against vessels accused by the administration for smuggling drugs has varied over time, from fentanyl trafficking to “narco-terrorism” to oil.

“With each of these extrajudicial killings, the administration is pirating American values,” Keating said during a Wednesday budget hearing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials.

Keating then mentioned when Hegseth gave classified briefings late last year with lawmakers about the controversial Sept. 2 strikes that killed two survivors of an initial attack of a boat suspected of carrying cocaine.

“I can't discuss it, but I must tell you, it's the most convoluted bullshit I ever heard in my life,” he said.

Hegseth said that was an “incredible array of false accusations.”

Hegseth and other Pentagon officials were invited to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget request to  increase defense spending to $1.5 trillion – the largest proposed amount in decades.

The House hearing gave lawmakers a chance to question the defense leaders for the first time since the start of the war on Iran, which the U.S. and Israel launched at the end of February. While Hegseth has touted the Iran war as “a gift to the world,” polls have found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the conflict and the Trump administration’s handling of it.

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