WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kelly called Pete Hegseth “the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever had in this country’s history,” after listing three officers he said the secretary had fired.
The Arizona Democrat said it on the Oct. 4 broadcast of Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan had asked about firings Senate Republicans had questioned, and about the cut to generals and admirals. Kelly answered with names.
This is a pattern with this Secretary of Defense, and it’s damaging our readiness.
He said Gen. C.Q. Brown was fired “without giving any reason,” and called him “one of the most qualified professional aviators” and a former Air Force chief of staff. He said Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, was fired. He said the commandant of the Coast Guard, “also a woman,” was fired. “The list goes on,” he said. He did not read a relief order, and he did not name the commandant.
A Navy biography lists Franchetti as retired and says she served as the 33rd chief of naval operations from November 2023 to February 2025. It does not state a reason for the end of the tour. A Feb. 21, 2025, department release, indexed on the Brown tag page, is Hegseth’s statement on general-officer nominations. It is not a relief order for Brown. The Coast Guard’s public biography of Adm. Linda L. Fagan still describes her as the 27th commandant. Kelly did not use her name.
He closed the list with the judgment. “We have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever had in this country’s history,” he said. He did not compare Hegseth’s résumé with a named predecessor. Earlier in the interview he had named a fourth officer in a campaign aside: Nancy Lacore, a South Carolina House candidate he called “a three-star admiral, a naval aviator like myself, who was fired by Pete Hegseth early in this administration.” That name is not in the three he listed for Brennan.
Hegseth’s Sept. 30 address, in the as-delivered text, says officers who “clung to the woke department or seem to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion, well, they no longer work here.” It does not name Brown, Franchetti, or a Coast Guard commandant.
The “unqualified” line is Kelly’s, attached to a list he recited. The Navy page confirms Franchetti’s tour ended in February 2025. It does not confirm his reason. The Coast Guard page does not confirm the firing he described.