Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are “not serious people” in response to their comments about a video Kelly and several fellow Democrats made earlier this month urging military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders.”
“This president thinks he can bully and intimidate people, and he is not going to, he’s not going to stop me from speaking out and holding him accountable for the things that he does that are wrong and unlawful,” Kelly told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Officials at the Defense Department earlier this month said they were launching an investigation into Kelly after President Donald Trump accused him and several other lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” a charge that 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 the lawmakers with death.
The accusations from Trump 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 illegal orders,” adding, “no one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”
The FBI has also sought to schedule interviews with six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in the video, which includes Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.
In the video, the lawmakers didn’t specify what illegal orders they might be referring to, and Kelly said Sunday that the video was “looking forward,” not referring to any potential illegal orders that may have already been given during this administration.
Still, Kelly cited comments Trump made on the debate stage 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’re gonna do it,” Trump said at the time. “That’s what leadership is all about.”
“They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me,” he added.
Kelly also referred to a comment Trump made earlier this year saying that the military should use “dangerous” U.S. cities as “training grounds.”
“We’re concerned because of this president, with this secretary of defense, we could have a significant problem. So this was a simple message, ‘Follow the law,’ and it was looking forward,” Kelly said Sunday.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News, “Despite their outlandish and dangerous claims, Democrats were unable to list any examples of unlawful orders when asked — because there have been none. It should deeply concern all Americans that elected Democrats are publicly urging the military to openly defy the chain-of-command and the Commander-In-Chief’s lawful orders to subvert the will of the American people.”
Hegseth called the original video from the Democratic lawmakers “despicable, reckless, and false” in a post on X earlier this month.
Kelly called Hegseth “the least qualified secretary of defense in the history of our country by far.”
In a separate interview Sunday on CNN, Kelly said the Navy had not notified him about an investigation into his conduct based on the video.
"I was notified about this through a tweet, the same tweet that you saw, and that demonstrates how unserious this administration is," Kelly told CNN. "They care more about the publicity about this than the process or the law. I haven’t been notified by the Navy."
The Defense Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
On "Meet the Press," Kelly referred to his own service in the Navy, where, he said, he sank ships.
“Never once did I question whether those orders were legal or illegal. People can tell the difference — should be able to tell the difference between something that is unlawful and something that is lawful,” he said. “And if I was ever given an unlawful order, I would refuse.”
Asked about reporting in The Washington Post over the weekend that Hegseth ordered a Navy SEAL team to “kill everybody” on a boat suspected of carrying drugs to the U.S. in September — the first strike in a monthslong campaign against alleged drug-ferrying boats — Kelly said, “I hope that the reporting is not accurate,” and called for an investigation.
“We’re going to put these folks under oath, and we’re going to find out what happened. And then there needs to be accountability,” Kelly said, pointing to the fact that the House and Senate armed services committees have launched inquiries looking into the Post’s reporting.
