On Monday, ABC News reporter Rachel Scott pressed Trump on when this second strike video would be released, asking: « You said he would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2 off the coast of Venezuela… »
But Trump interjected, falsely denying that he had ever agreed to releasing the video, saying: « I didn’t say that, you said that, I didn’t say that, this is ABC fake news. »
However, a transcript of the question on December 3 proves that he did.
Scott’s ABC colleague Selina Wang asked the president directly if video of the second strike would be released so that ‘the American people can see for themselves’.
In this moment, Trump appeared ebullient and even-handedly replied: « I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have we’d certainly release, no problem. »
He appeared to have no recollection of this promise five days later, something the ABC reporter pressed him on before pivoting to ask if Trump would order Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to release the video. He said he was now leaving it to Hegseth.
Trump then launched into a defence of his attacks on unmarked vessels that his administration claims are trafficking narcotics.
He made the unfounded claim that the ‘kinetic strikes’ had stopped ’94 percent’ of all drugs entering the US by sea, adding that each destroyed boat saves thousands of lives.
