President Donald Trump has claimed that he was totally unaware of a botched Navy SEAL mission in 2019 that ended with the deaths of multiple North Korean civilians.
On Friday, the New York Times reported that Trump personally gave the go-ahead for a mission that was intended to give the U.S. the capability to intercept North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s communications.
“I could look, but I don’t know anything about it,” the president said on Friday when a reporter asked about the mission. “I’m hearing it now for the first time.”
The aborted mission in North Korea was conducted by SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron—the unit that killed Osama bin Laden eight years earlier, according to the Times.
However, the members of the elite squadron made several mistakes when approaching the North Korean coast, where they intended to plant a newly developed device that would give American forces insight into Kim’s thinking while Trump sought to broker a nuclear arms deal.
As the SEALs arrived in North Korean, they were spotted by people on a fishing boat. Operating in a communications dead zone, the team members were unsure whether they had been detected by North Korean security forces or civilians.
They decided to open fire, killing the entire crew of the fishing boat and effectively ending the mission.
The 2019 incident was not the only failed military gambit during Trump’s first term.
In 2017, Trump hastily approved a Navy SEAL raid on a village in Yemen that resulted in the deaths of 30 civilians and one SEAL Team 6 member.
Trump called that raid a “winning mission” even though it led to the destruction of a $90 million military aircraft in addition to the loss of life.
Apart from displaying questionable judgment as commander-in-chief, the president also has a history of derogatory remarks toward service members, and clashes with his own senior generals.
Shortly after announcing his first run for the presidency in 2015, Trump ridiculed the late Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.”
In 2020, multiple outlets reported that two years earlier, President Trump had referred to American soldiers who died during wartime as “losers” and “suckers.” Trump avoided military service in Vietnam thanks to bone spurs on his heels.
A few months after the failed Navy SEAL raid in 2019, which the president supposedly had no knowledge about, negotiations broke down between the U.S. and North Korea, in October 2019.
The pariah state is now estimated to possess 50 nuclear warheads.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
