ICYMI: Kelly Calls Out Pete Hegseth’s Dangerous Hypocrisy
“I don’t think you can be more hypocritical than the two of these guys.”
In case you missed it, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to call out Secretary Pete Hegseth’s hypocrisy for attacking him for saying something Hegseth himself said just a few years ago.
Kelly also responded to questions about the latest news reports on the Trump administration’s decision to carry out boat strikes in the Caribbean.
Sen. Kelly speaks on Anderson Cooper 360°.
Watch the full Anderson Cooper 360° interview here and the full The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell interview here. See key excepts below:
From Anderson Cooper 360°, on outright hypocrisy of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth…
“Can you be more hypocritical? Is it possible? I don’t think so. On one hand, you have Pete Hegseth saying—not exactly the exact same thing because he’s even using Donald Trump’s name in this. […] I don’t think you can be more hypocritical than the two of these guys.
“I’m just looking out for members of the military. I served in the Navy for 25 years. I’ve been in these situations. I’ve sunk two ships myself. I’m worried about these servicemembers. So, we were just sending a truthful message. Just comply with the law, and then Donald Trump wants to kill me, hang me and Hegseth says he’s going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for saying what is in the UCMJ. But by the way, also a thing that he said repeatedly. Anderson, you can’t make this stuff up. A year ago, Pam Bondi sent a brief to the Supreme Court and basically stated the exact same thing that I said in that video.”
From The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, on danger of normalizing Trump’s threats against elected officials…
“It’s unprecedented in our country’s history for a president to call for the execution of members of Congress, and I hope we don’t normalize this behavior. Some people always—they dismiss it and say, ‘Well, it’s Donald Trump’. It is a direct assault on the First Amendment, the freedom of speech of all Americans.”
Sen. Kelly speaks on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.
From Anderson Cooper 360°, on how Trump and Hegseth are misusing military resources instead of targeting real fentanyl routes…
“These routes through the Caribbean are mostly bringing cocaine to other islands and then on to Europe. If the issue is fentanyl, then the approach needs to be at the border. That’s where most of the fentanyl comes into the United States. And when you consider the amount of money we’re spending to bring a battlegroup to the Caribbean, those resources put at the real problem of fentanyl smuggling could have a huge impact. That’s where the focus should be.”
From The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, on Hegseth shirking responsibility for boat strike that killed survivors…
“We’ve never had a Secretary of Defense like this, somebody that’s so fundamentally unqualified for this job. So, he wanted to get those videos out there until there was a little bit of a problem. And then when there was a problem, he’s off blaming the Admiral. He had no responsibility. He was not in the room. He does the opposite thing of what I’ve ever seen my leadership, people that I worked for do, whether it was in the military or at NASA, and that is accept some responsibility. He’s shirking his responsibility. He’s trying to blame others, and he doesn’t want the American people to see the results of bad decisions.”
