Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are \u201cnot serious people\u201d in response to their comments about a video Kelly and several fellow Democrats made earlier this month urging military and intelligence personnel to \u201crefuse illegal orders.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis president thinks he can bully and intimidate people, and he is not going to, he\u2019s not going to stop me from speaking out and holding him accountable for the things that he does that are wrong and unlawful,\u201d Kelly told NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials at the Defense Department earlier this month said they were launching an investigation<\/a> into Kelly after President Donald Trump accused him and several other lawmakers of \u201cseditious behavior<\/a>,\u201d a charge that the president said could be \u201cpunishable by death.\u201d<\/p>\n The president later walked back<\/a> his comments, telling conservative radio host Brian Kilmeade that he was not threatening the lawmakers with death.<\/p>\n The accusations from Trump came after several Democratic lawmakers \u2014 all of whom are military veterans or former intelligence officials \u2014 released a video urging current military and intelligence personnel to \u201crefuse illegal orders,\u201d adding, \u201cno one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n The FBI has also sought to schedule interviews<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n In the video, the lawmakers didn\u2019t specify what illegal orders they might be referring to, and on Sunday, Kelly said that the video was \u201clooking forward,\u201d not referencing any potential illegal orders that may have already been given during this administration.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I say do it, they\u2019re gonna do it,\u201d Trump said at the time<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s what leadership is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not gonna refuse me. Believe me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Kelly also referenced a comment Trump made earlier this year saying that the military should use \u201cdangerous\u201d U.S. cities as \u201ctraining grounds<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re concerned because of this president, with this secretary of defense, we could have a significant problem. So this was a simple message, \u2018Follow the law,\u2019 and it was looking forward,\u201d Kelly said Sunday.<\/p>\n Hegseth called the original video from the Democratic lawmakers \u201cdespicable, reckless, and false\u201d in a post on X<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n Kelly called Hegseth \u201cthe least qualified secretary of defense in the history of our country by far.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, the Arizona senator referenced his own service in the Navy, where he said he sank ships.<\/p>\n \u201cNever once did I question whether those orders were legal or illegal. People can tell the difference \u2014 should be able to tell the difference between something that is unlawful and something that is lawful,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if I was ever given an unlawful order, I would refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about reporting<\/a> in The Washington Post over the weekend that Hegseth ordered a Navy SEAL team to \u201ckill everybody\u201d on a boat suspected of carrying drugs to the U.S. in September \u2014 the first strike in a monthslong campaign<\/a> against alleged drug-ferrying boats \u2014 Kelly said, \u201cI hope that the reporting is not accurate,\u201d and called for an investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to put these folks under oath, and we\u2019re going to find out what happened. And then there needs to be accountability,\u201d Kelly said, pointing to the fact that the House and Senate armed services committees have launched inquiries<\/a> looking into the Washington Post\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are \u201cnot serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-322691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}