President Donald Trump appeared to slightly walk back comments he made last week regarding a highly scrutinized follow-up airstrike the U.S. military launched in September against alleged narco-terrorists in the Caribbean Sea.

Over the past five months, the Trump administration has publicly touted the strikes against alleged drug boats, claiming that each boat destroyed saved some 25,000 lives, but the Washington Post reported in late November that, following a successful strike in September, War Secretary Pete Hegseth personally ordered a second strike to kill survivors spotted clinging to the wreckage.