(CNN) — Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of either lying in his public response to news reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug boat in September or being incompetent.

“Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the White House are saying it did happen,” Paul told reporters in the US Capitol. “So, either he was lying to us … or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”

“Do we think there’s any chance that … the secretary of the defense did not know there had been a second strike? So as a country, we’re just going to let people lie to us, to our face?” he added.

Asked by CNN which comme

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