The suspected drug traffickers, the lone survivors of a U.S. airstrike, were sprawled on a table-size piece of floating wreckage in the Caribbean for more than 40 minutes. They were unarmed, incommunicado, and adrift as they repeatedly attempted to right what remained of their boat. At one point, the men raised their arms and seemed to signal to the U.S. aircraft above, a gesture some who watched a video of the incident interpreted as a sign of surrender. Then a second explosion finished the men off, leaving only a bloody stain on the surface of the sea. Footage of the two men’s desperate final moments made some viewers nauseated, leading one to nearly vomit. “It was worse than we had been led to believe,” one person told us.

The video was part of a briefing that Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, gave lawmakers on Thursday about the September 2 attack. Bradley told legislators that, after consulting military lawyers, he authorized the follow-on strike, judging that the men still posed a threat because of what they could have done: radioed for help or been picked up with what remained of their cargo of suspected cocaine. The video suggested they didn’t actually do any of that but Bradley defended his decisions in the first episode of the Trump administration’s newly militarized counternarcotics campaign.

Republicans and Democrats who watched the grainy footage drew different conclusions about whether Bradley’s actions were justified. But many also sounded exasperated that once again they were dealing with controversy sparked by Bradley’s boss, Pete Hegseth. And, after 10 months of turbulence under Hegseth’s leadership, the Republican-led Congress is now showing signs of exercising its oversight powers.

Hegseth has denied reports that he issued a verbal “no quarter” order—that is, an order to kill, not capture—in the September 2 attack, an assertion backed by Bradley. Hegseth also defended Bradley’s decision to launch a second strike—while insisting he wasn’t a part of it. But the congressional scrutiny is likely to continue, deepening the former Fox News host’s reliance on the one person responsible for his political rise: President Donald Trump.

So far, Trump continues to profess support. But he, too, is starting to tire of the scandals surrounding Hegseth and does not push back when others suggest Hegseth is not up for the job, an outside adviser to the White House and a former senior administration official, told us. Trump has not been happy that a number of Republicans on Capitol Hill are using Hegseth’s record as a reason to stand up to the White House, a further sign of cracks in what had until recently been unwavering GOP fealty to Trump. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina publicly rejected Hegseth’s claim he had been “exonerated” in Signalgate, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota declined, when asked, to offer his endorsement of Hegseth’s performance.

As one senior administration official summed it up: “Rough week for Pete.”

Since taking office, Hegseth has had few defenders in internal White House deliberations, even as Trump has backed him publicly. But the past week has been rocky even by Hegsethian standards, a point that was made clear in our interviews with roughly two dozen people in recent days.

In 10 months on the job, Hegseth has proven himself one of the president’s most loyal aides. A pugilistic former National Guardsman turned TV star, Hegseth narrowly secured confirmation in January after a nomination process marred by allegations of heavy drinking and sexual assault, which he denied. He and Trump had grown close during Trump’s first term, when Hegseth defended military officers accused of war crimes. “He'll really fight for me,” Trump told one outside adviser at the time.

Hegseth has generated widespread concern over his judgment and lack of restraint. His leadership has been defined by the summary firing of senior officers without cause, upheaval among his top advisers, giving his wife an outsize role in Pentagon affairs, juvenile social media habits, and his obsession with military fitness and appearance. At the Pentagon these days, there are increasingly two kinds of personnel—those fully on board with Hegseth and those afraid to say they are not. “It’s easier to stay out of the way than to be questioned about loyalty or willingness to do the job,” one defense official, who is in the latter camp, told us.

The maritime campaign, called “Operation Southern Spear,” is ostensibly aimed at curbing the flow of drugs from Venezuela to the United States, though the rationale is viewed by many as a thin veneer for Trump’s professed desire for the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro. The boat strikes, now totaling 22 with a death toll of more than 80, are viewed by many military law experts as likely illegal. On Tuesday, the family of a Colombian man killed in a September 15 strike filed a complaint at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging Hegseth violated international law. The Pentagon declined to provide a comment but pointed to the chief department spokesman’s denial that the Sept. 2 strike ran afoul of proper military tactics and his assertion that the maritime operations “have been a resounding success.”

Throughout this debate, Hegseth has used social media to taunt critics, posting videos of boats being incinerated and promising to kill traffickers en masse. This week, he posted on X a doctored version of the Franklin the Turtle children’s books, with a mock “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists” illustration that shows Franklin hanging from a military helicopter, weapon in hand.

Also this week, the Pentagon’s inspector general released long-awaited findings of its investigation into Hegseth’s decision to post details of a pending strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen in a group chat on Signal, a commercial messaging app, that included the editor in chief of this magazine. (Mike Waltz, former national security adviser, had inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg to the group.) The inspector general concluded that Hegseth could have put U.S. personnel and the mission at risk by his actions, even though the mission was completed. The report also found that Hegseth, as the Pentagon’s senior official, had the authority to declassify the sensitive information as he transmitted it—in effect declassifying it in his own head—but noted that the attack details had been classified when they were relayed to him by U.S. Central Command. The report also faulted Hegseth for violating his own department’s policies by using Signal for Pentagon business.

As Hegseth was busy attempting to declare exoneration from a report that clearly suggested otherwise, he was sued by The New York Times over his October decision to bar reporters from working inside the Pentagon unless they agree to restrictions that could prevent reporters from publishing information not approved by the administration, conditions that journalists and First Amendment lawyers broadly agree represent an ostentatious attack on Americans’ basic constitutional protections.

It’s not as though Hegseth was widely adored until this week. He alienated many in Trump’s orbit all the way back in the presidential transition when they believed he was misleading about parts of his professional and personal history that later came to light in the media and in his contentious confirmation hearings. Susie Wiles, now the president’s chief of staff, groused to aides that she could never tell if Hegseth was telling the truth.

When Signalgate broke, in March, Trump called a number of his close allies to take their temperature on whether he should dismiss Hegseth. Some suggested he be fired but Trump opted against it. He and his inner circle wanted to avoid the constant staff turnover of Trump’s first term. They have largely stuck to that "no scalps" policy so as not to give the Democrats a win—or the media a major story—by appearing to bow to pressure. (Waltz lost his post as national security adviser but was given a soft landing as ambassador to the United Nations). Hegseth never regained the trust of some in the West Wing.