Sen. Mark Kelly used a late night TV slot to torch Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of running a political hit job to impress Donald Trump and calling him “totally unqualified” for one of the most powerful national security posts in the country.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, the Arizona Democrat unloaded on Hegseth after the Pentagon ordered a review of Kelly’s conduct for “potentially unlawful” behavior tied to a now infamous video urging troops to refuse illegal orders.
Hegseth had asked the Navy secretary to scrutinize Kelly’s remarks, saying there were “serious allegations of misconduct” against the former Navy captain. Kelly, who served 25 years in the Navy and later as a NASA astronaut, is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice as a retired officer, which means he can technically be recalled and court martialed.
The senator’s supposed crime was appearing in a short video alongside five other Democratic lawmakers, all with military or intel backgrounds, telling service members that they “must refuse illegal orders” and reminding them that “no one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”
“The threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” the six said in the clip. “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.”
Trump reacted by calling the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” and demanding consequences for what he branded a betrayal by “traitors.” That outburst set off parallel investigations, with the FBI seeking interviews with all six lawmakers and Hegseth homing in on Kelly as the one person he could drag into the military justice system.
Kelly told Kimmel he sees something much darker in all of this.
“It is right out of the playbook, you know, the playbook of authoritarianism. That is what they do. They try to suppress speech,” Kelly said. “Every one of us has First Amendment speech rights, and I think the president is infringing on those and he is sending, he is sending a pretty strong message. You do not want to cross him, and your loyalty should be to him. It should not. It should always be to the Constitution.”
Then he turned his fire directly on Hegseth.
Kelly said Hegseth is “totally unqualified” for the job and that “he just wants to please the president.” “He can go after me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is law in the military, which is kind of wild, because we recited something in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and he is going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Kelly added. “It is so ridiculous, it is almost like you can’t make this s— up.”
On Kimmel’s couch, Kelly also recounted how he first learned that Trump had escalated from angry posts to calling for executions. He said he was in a secure briefing room with Sen. Elissa Slotkin when a staffer slipped her a note.
“So somebody comes in in the middle of our brief, slips her piece of paper and I take a look at the piece of paper, and it says, ‘The president is calling for your execution’ to her, to Elissa,” Kelly recalled. “About five minutes later, she comes back in, looks at me and says, ‘Well, he’s calling for your execution too.’ So I wasn’t off the hook.”
Hegseth, for his part, has not backed down either. In one post on X, he mocked a photo of Kelly in uniform, sneering, “So ‘Captain’ Kelly, not only did your sedition video intentionally undercut good order & discipline… but you can’t even display your uniform properly,” claiming his medals were “out of order & rows reversed” and warning that if Kelly is recalled, “it’ll start with a uniform inspection.”
Kelly served for 25 years in the Navy and at NASA, retiring in 2011.
