Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is definitely agreeing with Pete Hegseth — or, to be extra particular, a 2016 model of the protection secretary.
On Tuesday, Kelly posted a clip to X from his latest look on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”
The clip Kelly selected included an outdated — and now viral — video of Hegseth speaking very frankly concerning the navy’s obligation to reject orders that violate the legislation at an occasion hosted by what was then known as the Conservative Discussion board of Silicon Valley in April 2016.
Screenshot CNN by way of Snapstream/Getty
The throwback video of Hegseth appears to have gone viral due to Hegseth’s Sept. 2 double-strike controversy, an act many say was possible a battle crime.
“I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes,” Hegseth stated on the occasion in 2016. “If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that.”
“That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief,” Hegseth continued. “There’s a standard, there’s an ethos. There’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.”
Final month, Democratic veterans and former intelligence officers — together with Kelly — launched a video urging service members to face as much as President Donald Trump’s administration in the event that they obtain “illegal orders.” The video was met with a fairly hostile response from Trump, who decried the video as “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR” on social media and appeared to endorse a submit that known as for the lawmakers to be executed.
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that Trump doesn’t wish to execute members of Congress.
Hegseth responded to the Democrats’ video by publishing a tweet final week that stated Kelly, a retired Navy fighter pilot, was dealing with investigation as a result of he’s the one one in that group who formally retired from the navy and stays underneath the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.
“Pete Hegseth says he’s going to court-martial me for saying the same exact thing he said 9 years ago,” Kelly stated within the caption of his tweet that included the clip of Hegseth in 2016. “What changed for Pete? Well to start, he spends all day thinking about how he can suck up to Trump. When Trump says jump, he says how high.”
The retired astronaut expanded upon this throughout his dialog with Burnett on CNN Tuesday.
“Well, Erin, I think he’s correct. And it’s exactly what we said,” Kelly stated of Hegseth’s 2016 video. “But when we said it, Pete Hegseth now said — eight years later or … nine years later — he says, what we said was false and reckless. And I think it begs the question: What has changed?”
He continued, “And it’s pretty obvious what has changed is we have an unqualified secretary of defense who only cares about sucking up to this president, and loyalty to this president. That’s the difference. It’s who’s commander-in-chief.”
