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CBS News National Security Correspondent Charlie D'Agata is joining us from Washington this morning. So, Charlie, bring us up to speed on the concerns in Congress about these strikes and what's alleged, what The Washington Postis alleging happened, the order that the Defense Secretary gave to those commanders who were on the ground during, I guess what was that very first strike that you reported on way back when it happened. So the thing that they're debating over right now, aside from the legality of the strikes in general, is that first strike, where The WashingtonPostreported that there was a second strike. Sometimes the military calls it a double tap, when you go back and see if you've hit the target. And there were survivors in the water, and that raises all kinds of questions about war crimes or what exactly this operation is, if it's special ops. But either way, in a military engagement like that, that is strictly forbidden. And that's why, as you said, congressmen on both sides of the aisle want to know more about it. Now, Secretary Hegseth hasn't come out and said, I did not order that. He wouldn't specifically talk to that. But he said, "As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland." He then released a sort of meme showing a turtle blowing up a drug boat or a suspected drug boat, the RPG fired by Franklin, I guess, is the character, toward the vessel, and it is an explosion. So that's the way he's handling it. But I'm not exactly sure he can continue to deflect the heat of what's happening there. I've just come back from that region. Look, there's no way to overstate it. The United States is preparing for war. They are tooled up. They've got the aircraft carrier there, the Gerald RFord, F-35s, the Reaper drones with the hellfire missiles thought to be responsible for that. All of that is happening right around Puerto Rico and in the waters off Venezuela. B-52s have been flying over there. F-18s from the Ford are overflying areas, not over Venezuela itself, but certainly skirting the Coast and making a show of it. Also, the Marines are there. So you're about as tooled up as you can get for a military posture. So, as you know, the president declared over this weekend that the airspace in and around Venezuela is "closed," quote, "in its entirety." The president also was asked about those that alleged double tap, and what did he have to say about that? Because it does seem-- you know as well as I do, when the president has some degree of certainty about how he feels about a particular subject or a particular policy, he's not very shy about letting the media know. For example, when he was asked about the federal troops in Chicago, perhaps if there were too many, he said that in his estimation, there were not enough. So when he feels strongly about something, he's going to come out and say it. He was asked about this double tap, and it seemed kind of wishy-washy to me. It was a bit wishy-washy, but he said in his words, Pete said that it didn't happen. So he's putting his trust, as in a normal environment, you would put the trust in the Secretary of Defense. But he is sort of defiantly saying, look, this is Pete Hegseth's mission, and he's driving it, and he feels fully confident in his Defense Secretary. Now, in terms of closing the airspace, as he said to "airlines, pilots, drug dealers, human traffickers," et cetera, Venezuela's government forcefully rejected it, calling it a colonial threat to undermine the country's territorial integrity. Now, this happened a couple of days ago, and it put everybody on edge, of course, because we're waiting. As I said, they are postured. Whether they're going to engage in a military conflict that goes on to land strikes may be irrelevant at the moment. They are absolutely postured to do that. That's where you send a carrier in. If you think about the strikes on the Houthis, the kind of aircraft, the kind of what's called a strike package is for those kind of strikes. So this might be psyops. This might be giving a warning to the leadership of Venezuela. But it's got everybody on edge. And of course, Venezuela has come out swinging.
