What did Donald Trump do today?

He backtracked on whether he'd ordered a war crime.

The Washington Post reported last week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered a second strike to kill survivors of an initial attack on what the Trump administration claims was a Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat. 

Killing helpless survivors of an attack on a ship is never, ever permitted under U.S. or international law. Ordering or taking part in such an attack is either murder or a war crime. This is not a matter of opinion or legal interpretation: the current, governing edition of the Department of Defense's Law of War Manual makes this clear in exactly these terms and demands that officers refuse any such order:

18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations. The
requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.

Trump, for his part, has spent much of the past two weeks furious that six Democratic members of Congress with military and intelligence background posted a video saying as much, at one point calling for their deaths before later denying (or forgetting) that he'd done so.

The problem for the Trump administration is not just that Trump has apparently authorized—or been powerless to stop—the murder of defenseless survivors, but that there are Republicans in Congress who care more about respect for the law of warfare than protecting Trump, and are in a position to join Democrats in launching a real investigation.

That may explain why, after several days of claiming otherwise, Trump and his officials are now saying no such authorization was given. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One this evening, Trump reversed course and said that he "wouldn't have wanted that — not a second strike" and promised to "look into" it. In practice, since Trump is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, that can only mean finding someone in the military chain of command to take the blame if it becomes politically necessary.

Trump also said that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had assured him that no such order had been given. But even if Trump hadn't issued an illegal order to kill survivors himself, Hegseth—a "terminal major" in the Minnesota Army National Guard before his appointment—has already developed a habit of ignoring what he's supposedly been told to do by the White House.

Hegseth's contribution to the discourse today was to post a cartoon meme showing a children's book character blowing up "narco terrorists."

Why does this matter?

• Nobody who respects or understands the United States military ever jokes about war crimes. 

• Trump is ultimately responsible for any crimes committed here and cannot be trusted to "look into" how guilty he is. 

• A president who refuses to take responsibility for issuing illegal orders is throwing the military under the bus.