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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took a swing this week at Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly, a Navy veteran with whom the secretary has previously sparred in both the public and legal arenas.
Hegseth’s beef with Kelly centers on a recent interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” In that interview, Kelly discussed the alleged condition of the U.S. stockpile amid the war with Iran.
“‘Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again,” Hegseth fired off on X. “Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review.”
Here’s what Sen. Kelly said in his interview, according to a transcript released by the outlet:
“We’ve been briefed by the Pentagon on specific munitions. Actually, it’s been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM-3, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds, so those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves. And the numbers are, I think it’s fair to say it’s shocking the [sic] how deep we have gone into these magazines, because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, and because of that, we’ve expended a lot of munitions, and that means the American people are less safe, whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted.”
Hegseth’s threat to review Kelly’s comments prompted some sparring between the two men on social media. “We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you,” Kelly alleged.
Kelly came under fire last year when he participated in a video with other Democratic lawmakers, in which they seemed to suggest to U.S. servicemembers that they should disobey what they described as “illegal” orders. However, they did not specify what those orders might be.
The Department of War, in turn, launched a probe against Sen. Kelly, with Secretary Hegseth threatening potential court-martial over the comments.
In February, a federal judge blocked Hegseth from pursuing disciplinary action against Sen. Kelly, suggesting that such a move may have violated the Democrat’s First Amendment rights, as reported by RSBN. Hegseth promised to “immediately” appeal the decision.
