Sen. Mark Kelly says Trump and Hegseth are ‘not serious people’ amid military video investigation

Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said Sunday that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were “not serious people” in response to their comments on a video Kelly and several Democratic colleagues made earlier this month urging military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders.”

“This president thinks he can intimidate people, and he’s not going to do that, he’s not going to stop me from speaking out and holding him accountable for the things that he’s doing that are wrong and illegal,” Kelly told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Defense Department officials said earlier this month they were opening an investigation into Kelly after President Donald Trump accused him and several other lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” a charge the president said could be “punishable by death.”

The president later walked back his comments, telling conservative radio host Brian Kilmeade that he was not threatening lawmakers with death.

Trump’s accusations came after several Democratic lawmakers — all of whom are military veterans or former intelligence officials — released a video urging current military and intelligence personnel to “refuse unlawful orders,” adding that “no one is obligated to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

The FBI also sought to schedule interviews with six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in the video, including Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, as well as Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

In the video, lawmakers did not specify what illegal orders they might be referring to, and on Sunday, Kelly said the video was “impatient,” without referring to possible illegal orders that may have already been given under this administration.

Kelly nonetheless cited comments Trump made during the debate during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, where the then-candidate said he would be able to get the military to comply with his orders, even if they were illegal under international law.

“If I say do it, they will do it,” Trump said at the time. “That’s leadership.”

“They’re not going to turn me away. Believe me,” he added.

Kelly also referenced a comment from Trump earlier this year that the military should use “dangerous” US cities as “training grounds.”

“We’re concerned that because of this president and this secretary of defense, we could have a significant problem. So it was a simple message, ‘Follow the law,’ and it was forward-looking,” Kelly said Sunday.

Hegseth called the Democratic lawmakers’ original video “despicable, reckless and false” in an article on X earlier this month.

Kelly called Hegseth “by far the least qualified Secretary of Defense in the history of our country.”

In a separate interview on CNN Sunday, Kelly said he had not yet been informed by the Navy of an investigation into his conduct based on the video.

“I was made aware of it by a tweet, the same tweet that you saw, and it demonstrates how not serious this administration is,” Kelly told CNN. “They care more about the publicity on this than the process or the law. I have not been informed by the Navy.”

The Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On “Meet the Press” Sunday, the Arizona senator referenced his own service in the Navy, where he said he sank ships.

“I never questioned whether these orders were legal or illegal. People can tell the difference – they should be able to tell the difference between something that is illegal and something that is lawful,” he said. “And if I were ever given an illegal order, I would refuse. »

Asked about a Washington Post report over the weekend that Hegseth ordered a Navy SEAL team to “kill everyone” on a boat suspected of transporting drugs to the United States in September — the first strike in a months-long campaign against alleged drug boats — Kelly responded, “I hope the reports aren’t accurate” and called for an investigation.

“We’re going to swear these people in and we’re going to find out what happened. And then there has to be accountability,” Kelly said, pointing to the fact that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have launched investigations into the Washington Post’s reporting.