Sen. Mark Kelly on Tuesday vowed not to back down after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ramped up his attacks on the former Navy pilot for his participation in a video urging service members not to follow unlawful orders from the Trump administration.
Hegseth said the Defense Department was taking “administrative action” against Kelly for what he called “reckless misconduct.”
“The department has initiated retirement grade determination proceedings under 10 U.S.C. § 1370(f), with reduction in his retired grade resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay,” Hegseth wrote Monday on social media, adding that he had filed a letter of censure against Kelly.
The Arizona Democrat joined “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on Tuesday night to respond to Hegseth’s attacks.
“I said something the president didn’t like,” Kelly said. “He said I should be hanged, executed, and then he got Pete Hegseth on this path that has now led to this letter of censure and this threat to reduce me in rank and take some of my retirement.”
“This is just not going to work,” Kelly continued. “I’m not backing down. I’m not going to go away. I’m going to continue to do my job.”
Kelly said Hegseth was “in no way qualified” to lead the Pentagon and Donald Trump “should have never offered him this job.”
As O’Donnell pointed out, unlike the other Democratic lawmakers who participated in the video, Kelly is the only one subject to this kind of disciplinary action due to his military service.
“Other senators who never served in the military, people like Donald Trump, who never served in the military, could never be subject to, could never receive a letter like this,” the MS NOW host pointed out.
Kelly agreed and detailed some of what he experienced during his decades of service. “I’m retired,” he said, “because I spent 25 years in the United States Navy, because I flew 39 combat missions. I almost got shot down a bunch of times. I had a missile blow up next to my airplane once. I flew in space four times.”
“Because I had that long career of service, they think this gives them the right to go after me personally and to threaten me with criminal prosecution, or execution, because they just very simply didn’t like what I said,” he added.
O’Donnell asked what Kelly would say to Hegseth if he could speak to him directly. “I would tell him, ‘Hey, regardless of what you tried to do to me, I’m going to continue to do my job, and you cannot go after us — citizens, retired service members, in my case — for something they said that that was truthful,’” Kelly said.
You can watch Kelly’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.