Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer and constitutional lawyer who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, used a precisely calculated five-minute exchange at the April 29, 2026 House Armed Services Committee hearing to force Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to publicly affirm — on the congressional record — the bedrock American legal principle that military service members must follow lawful orders and lawful orders only. Then she turned the moment against him. “He did agree with me when I quoted him back to himself,” Goodlander said in a video posted on X on May 4, 2026. “We’ve got real challenges and real threats in this country. We need serious people at the helm of the most important institutions in the world, and that includes the Department of Defense. He’s got to go.”
The exchange at the House Armed Services Committee’s Full Committee Hearing on the Department of Defense FY27 Budget Request, held on April 29, 2026, in Rayburn 2118, was brief and surgical. Goodlander asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine: “Do you agree with the statement, ‘The military won’t follow unlawful orders’?” Caine replied: “I do.” She then turned to Hegseth: “Mr. Hegseth, do you agree with that statement?” Hegseth said: “I do, but understand what you’re insinuating is a partisan point.” Goodlander’s reply ended the exchange: “I’m not. I’m actually quoting you directly, Mr. Hegseth, from April 12th, 2016, and I appreciate that on the record you’ve clarified this important principle of American law.”
Why the 2016 Quote Matters — and What Has Happened Since
Goodlander’s decision to quote Hegseth’s own April 12, 2016 words back to him was not a rhetorical flourish — it was the product of a months-long legal and political confrontation over precisely that principle. In early 2026, Goodlander and five congressional colleagues — Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, and Chrissy Houlahan, and Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin — posted a video titled “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” in which they recited the bedrock principle of American law that military service members must follow lawful orders and lawful orders only. As documented in a press release from Goodlander’s official House office, President Trump responded by calling the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” and directing the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation against the lawmakers. That investigation failed — the DOJ was unable to secure a grand jury indictment, which Goodlander’s office described as “an extremely rare rebuke of the Trump Administration and a forceful affirmation that the Members had committed no crime.”
At the same time, Hegseth initiated disciplinary proceedings against Sen. Mark Kelly to reduce his retired military grade and pay — a move widely interpreted as punishment for Kelly’s participation in the “Don’t Give Up the Ship” video. Goodlander subsequently led a legal brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging the Trump administration’s campaign of retribution against the six lawmakers as a violation of the First Amendment and the Constitution’s separation of powers. “We all swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies — foreign and domestic,” Goodlander said in the press release. “That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it.” It was in that context — a months-long legal battle over the principle that service members follow only lawful orders — that Goodlander walked into the April 29 hearing and asked Hegseth whether he agreed with his own 2016 statement about unlawful orders.
The Hearing: A Two-Day Confrontation
The April 29 hearing was the first of two consecutive days of testimony Hegseth gave before Congress on the FY27 defense budget — a record $1.5 trillion request representing a 50% increase over current spending. The hearing featured some of the most contentious exchanges between a sitting Defense Secretary and Congress in recent memory. Hegseth opened his remarks before any lawmaker had asked a question by calling congressional critics “the biggest adversary” the United States faces in the Iran war — language that generated bipartisan outrage. He called Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal “defeatist.” He accused Rep. John Garamendi of “handing propaganda to our enemies.” He told Rep. Jason Crow his questions were “a huge waste of your five minutes.” And he repeatedly refused to provide specific cost figures for the Iran war.
Goodlander’s April 29 video, posted after the hearing, focused on Hegseth’s inability to answer basic financial questions. “Pete Hegseth could not answer the most basic questions about how much President Trump’s war of choice in Iran is costing you, the American taxpayer,” she said. “He said he wants to be accountable, will be accountable for each and every American taxpayer dollar that’s spent, where it goes and why. He couldn’t answer the most basic questions about where your taxpayer dollars have gone in this war of choice. He also couldn’t answer the most basic questions about the sky-high costs that you are facing every single day as a direct result of this war. I asked him about gas prices. He was stumped.” The Pentagon had told the committee the war cost $25 billion to date — a figure that three sources told CNN is closer to $40-50 billion when accounting for damage to U.S. military bases across the region.
Who Is Maggie Goodlander?
Goodlander’s ability to execute the hearing exchange the way she did is inseparable from her background. As documented on her official House biography, she served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve for more than a decade. She worked as a foreign policy advisor to Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman — both of whom served on the Senate Armed Services Committee — where she helped write landmark sanctions legislation. She clerked for Chief Judge Merrick Garland on the D.C. Circuit and for Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court. She served as counsel during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She worked as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ. She taught constitutional law at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. As confirmed by the House Clerk’s office, she serves on the House Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel and Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittees — the precise subcommittees with oversight over the rules of engagement and military legal standards Hegseth was being questioned about.
She is also married to Jake Sullivan, who served as National Security Advisor under President Biden from 2021 to 2025. That relationship has made her a particular target of Trump administration criticism — a dynamic she has not shied away from addressing. She was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1986, represents New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, and was first elected in November 2024. Her district is home to more than 1,200 active-duty service members and more than 5,680 National Guard and reserve members, as noted in her Armed Services Committee assignment press release — making oversight of Pentagon leadership a direct constituent obligation for her.
The Principle She Is Defending — and Why It Is Contested
The principle Goodlander quoted back to Hegseth — that military service members follow lawful orders and lawful orders only — is enshrined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (10 U.S.C. § 892, Article 92), which makes it a criminal offense to disobey a lawful order, and in military case law that has developed since the Nuremberg trials established that “following orders” is not a defense to war crimes. The corollary — that service members are obligated to refuse unlawful orders — is equally well established. Its relevance in 2026 is direct: Democrats including Goodlander, Crow, and others have argued that the Trump administration has issued or contemplated unlawful orders in the context of the Iran war, including allegations surrounding the September 2, 2025 strike in which two survivors in the water were reportedly killed in a follow-on strike after a Pentagon official allegedly ordered that “everyone” be killed.
The reason Goodlander quoted Hegseth’s own 2016 words back to him — rather than simply stating the principle herself — was tactical precision. By forcing Hegseth to either agree with his own prior statement or contradict himself on the record, she neutralized his ability to dismiss the question as a “partisan point.” When Hegseth tried to do exactly that — saying “I do, but understand what you’re insinuating is a partisan point” — Goodlander’s revelation that she was quoting him directly from 2016 collapsed that defense in real time. The exchange was over in seconds, but the congressional record now shows the sitting Secretary of Defense affirming, under questioning from a congressional committee, that military service members are not required to follow unlawful orders — a principle his own department has been accused of violating. “I appreciate that on the record you’ve clarified this important principle of American law,” Goodlander said, and yielded back her time.
“He’s Got to Go”
Goodlander’s May 4 video — her second public call for Hegseth’s removal in less than a week — sharpened her earlier critique into a direct demand. “Pete Hegseth has no business serving as our Secretary of Defense,” she said. “We don’t need people who are so out of touch, so unqualified, and so obsessed with themselves and their own vanity projects that they can’t serve the people who have put their trust in him. He’s got to go.” Her call mirrors that of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who issued the same demand after Hegseth dismissed polling showing 62% of Americans oppose the Iran war — telling Gillibrand he believed the American people support the mission. It is also consistent with the position of virtually every Democrat who appeared at the two-day hearing. Whether a Republican-controlled House and Senate will move against a sitting Defense Secretary appointed by a sitting Republican president in wartime remains vanishingly unlikely. But the April 29 hearing exchange — with Hegseth’s own words turned into the instrument of his accountability — will remain in the congressional record regardless of what happens next.