WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday justified the U.S. military’s decision to fire a second missile in a heavily scrutinized attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea by claiming that two suspected drug smugglers were trying to right the vessel after it had capsized in the initial strike.

Trump also backtracked on whether he was open to releasing the video footage of the second strike. Last week, Trump told reporters he saw “no problem” in releasing the footage, but on Monday he said he would leave the decision to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Republican administration is facing calls from Democratic lawmakers to release footage of the Sept. 2 operation in the Caribbean Sea, which killed nine people aboard the boat in an initial strike and then two more who managed to survive.

“They were trying to return the boat back to where it could float, and we didn’t want to see that because that boat was loaded up with drugs,” Trump said on Monday.

When asked by a reporter about his comments last week suggesting he was open to releasing footage of the second strike, Trump denied that was his position and bitterly attacked the reporter as “obnoxious” and “terrible.”

“Whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me,” Trump said.

Trump, however, last Wednesday in an exchange with reporters about the strike footage said: “Whatever they have we’d certainly release.”

The Sept. 2 operation was the first in what has become a monthslong series of American strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that the administration says are targeting drug smugglers working on behalf of cartels, including some controlled by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. At least 87 people have been killed in 22 known strikes.