Sen. Mark Kelly says Hegseth has three ways out—and Trump has a choice

[0:00] Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. [0:04] Pete Hegseth tried and failed to have him face military punishment as the only member of the so-called Seditious Six, [0:10] earning a Navy retirement. And he joins me now. [0:14] Senator, it's good to have you. First, I just want to ask if you've gotten a chance to look over these articles of impeachment [0:18] and your general feeling, obviously, about this, given that should it pass the House, it will come to you in the United States Senate. [0:26] Yeah, Chris, it's kind of wild, right? I, you know, find myself in the middle of this thing. [0:33] We made a very straightforward and basic video last year just telling members of the military that they don't have to follow the illegal orders. [0:45] Then Donald Trump said we should be hanged, executed, prosecuted. [0:49] They tried to indict us for seditious conspiracy. [0:52] And then when they couldn't, when all that didn't work, right, then he tries to reduce me in rank and take away my pension after 25 years of service. [1:01] So, yeah, I've been obviously I've been following this thing. [1:04] I took a look at the articles of impeachment when Massey did this the first time and Mike Johnson sent people home. [1:11] And I think the simplest solution to all of this is that Donald Trump should fire the most unqualified secretary of defense this country has ever seen. [1:23] A guy who was screwed up at every turn right from the very beginning when he got this job until, I mean, recently, like with the public execution thing, he should have been gone a long time ago. [1:37] I want to just read from one of the articles of impeachment that does concern you specifically. [1:43] And I thought it was interesting. [1:44] I have to say, you know, I didn't know. [1:46] Obviously, Massey has a different ideological profile than, say, I do or I think you do. [1:50] And I didn't know what the kind of breadth of what he would include was. [1:53] But there's actually quite a bit. [1:55] But this is the one that concerns you. [1:56] It says Secretary Hegseth weaponized the Department of Defense to retaliate against and intimidate Sarah Mark Kelly for such a statement. [2:03] These are the statements you recorded. [2:04] And in doing so, Secretary Hegseth weaponized the Department of Defense to chill a core function of the legislative branch and through the precedent sought to establish that he sought to establish place the First Amendment rights of millions of United States veterans at risk of irreparable harm. [2:20] You basically agree that's what happened. [2:23] Yeah. [2:24] And, you know, here's the thing. [2:25] And I think, you know, Tom Massey points this out. [2:28] This wasn't really about me and it wasn't about the other people in the video. [2:33] It was about silencing millions of Americans who have served this country and trying to get them to shut up. [2:41] This administration doesn't want any kind of accountability. [2:44] They don't want people speaking out. [2:46] But they're not going to shut me up. [2:48] They're not going to silence me. [2:49] And I'm going to keep fighting back because, you know, I'm the person out there looking out for the First Amendment rights of millions of people. [2:59] There is there's reporting we have at MSNOW about the promotion system that Pete Hegseth has set up. [3:09] And this has been the source of a lot of controversy. [3:10] It has looked from outside to a lot of people. [3:13] And I've seen people say this, including Adam Serwer at The Atlantic, who says he basically thinks Pete Hegseth is attempting to resegregate the upper ranks of the U.S. armed forces. [3:23] And we have our own reporting from our great reporter, Prius Shadar. [3:28] I'll read you a little bit. [3:30] And I mentioned in the intro that Pentagon officials have revealed his criteria for senior promotions. [3:35] The way that his office may have also broken the law, said three senior officials. [3:40] Cody Harness, the military defense attorney and former Army judge advocate general, said the way the officers were pulled from promotion lists after being selected is illegal. [3:48] This was just flatly illegal. [3:50] What do you think? [3:51] Well, I mean, are we surprised? [3:55] I mean, I mean, I'm not. [3:57] Of course, Pete Hegseth is doing things that are illegal. [4:00] He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and gave no reason. [4:05] He fired other black service members and women without cause. [4:10] Of course, that's against the law. [4:12] So what we learned today, I mean, it was interesting, but, you know, we knew he must have been out there, you know, searching the Internet for things about COVID and, you know, Women's Day and other things that for some reason, this guy who served in the military thinks those are egregious things that people should lose their jobs for. [4:35] I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how he became this this person he is. [4:40] But his expiration date in this job has expired a long time ago, should have never had it. [4:47] Trump should have fired him, you know, when he was one month into the job and he's still here. [4:53] If the president doesn't fire him and he doesn't seem, I mean, anything can change. [4:58] And honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if, you know, we got news in the hour that he was out. [5:03] So I have no idea. He doesn't appear to be that doesn't appear to be imminent. [5:08] There is a question of this vote. [5:11] Have you had conversations on the Senate Democratic side about how you would handle it? [5:17] My understanding is that this would be passed along from this House to the next Congress of the Senate. [5:23] Here's what Thomas Massey had to say about that today. Take a listen. [5:29] The articles of impeachment, once they leave the House, they they survive that into the next Senate. [5:36] Like every H.R. bill in here will die and you'll have to reintroduce it, but not these articles of impeachment. [5:42] If the Senate doesn't deal with this, the end, you know, before the end of this Senate, [5:47] they they're turning it over to a Democrat Senate who can then have the trials and deal with it. [5:53] Now, obviously, that's a Republican leadership choice to make in the lame duck, but could be a choice for Democrats. [6:01] What do you think about? Well, I think that's a possibility. [6:06] You know, I don't I don't know what John Thune, the current majority leader in the Senate, thinks about, you know, all this. [6:13] He said, you know, very little about it. [6:17] And we know what Mike Johnson thinks is he doesn't want to deal with it. [6:21] So I think there's a good chance he could hold it. [6:23] Hey, we're going to deal with it when it comes over. [6:26] Sounds like they're going to have the vote this week. [6:28] You know, when they're whether they send it over, you know, in the next couple of weeks or next year with the new Senate. [6:35] I think there is a difference because of who's in the majority, whether or not there's a trial. [6:38] He should be he should be removed from the job. [6:41] I mean, that's that's clear. [6:42] And whether it's through impeachment or being fired or he could quit and and just kind of move on with his life. [6:51] I think, you know, one of those three things will possibly happen and he'll leave or maybe not. [6:58] Maybe Donald Trump, you know, wants to keep this guy around to the end of his administration. [7:01] But here's the problem with that. [7:04] He's going to continue to make more really bad decisions that have really bad consequences. [7:11] You just mentioned the new Democratic majority, which will be somewhere between 54 and 56 seats in that next U.S. Congress. [7:22] The new members, a bunch of them were in the Senate today for their orientation. [7:26] I don't know how this works. [7:28] Do you guys do like a mixer or are they like sequestered so you don't meet them? [7:31] Did you get to meet them? [7:32] Have you met any of your new colleagues? [7:36] Well, I've met all of them because I traveled all across the country. [7:39] I was I've been in 20 states in the last four months. [7:42] I've campaigned with every single one of them in many, many times more than once. [7:48] I, you know, first learned of Annie Andrews. [7:51] This is kind of interesting. [7:52] About a year and a half ago, my daughter, Claudia, who lives in Tucson, who's a mom, asked me if I knew Annie Andrews a year and a half ago. [7:59] And I said, I have no idea who you're talking about. [8:01] And she said, Dad, she's running for Senate in South Carolina and you got to help her. [8:07] So I was connected with her pretty early and have been a fan and a supporter. [8:13] And I, you know, right from the beginning, I thought she has a real shot of winning the Senate race. [8:18] You know, often when nobody did, we had a great election night. [8:23] We elected great candidates. [8:24] We had much better candidates than they had on their side. [8:27] The combination of that and this president who is completely checked out from even trying to help the American people and the corruption and the chaos. [8:36] We had a great night. [8:37] Hey, it's Rachel. [8:38] I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips and all of our shows and everything on MSNOW on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. [8:51] You can watch things live or recorded. [8:53] Plus, you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions in our weekly live chats. [8:58] You can go to ms.now slash membership or just click below. [9:04] Thanks.