Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Wednesday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is the least qualified person ever to hold the office, accusing him of performing for President Trump rather than doing the job, during a live interview with journalist Scott MacFarlane published on Substack.
“I think in our country’s history, we have not had a less qualified Secretary of Defense,” Kelly said in the April 29 interview. “He is like the perfect definition of a yes man, and he’s not doing the job that we would expect out of a secretary of defense.”
Kelly also used the interview to push back on his longstanding feud with Hegseth, accusing the defense secretary of politically motivated retaliation. “Pete Hegseth performs for one person — that’s the president,” Kelly said. “He tries to get his attention, keep his attention, say things he thinks the president would find favorable.”
A Running Legal and Public Battle
The exchange between Kelly and MacFarlane is the latest chapter in one of the most publicly contentious disputes between a sitting U.S. senator and a cabinet official in recent memory. The conflict traces back to November 2025, when Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds posted a video urging service members not to follow illegal orders. The Pentagon, at Hegseth’s direction, opened a formal command investigation into Kelly in December, describing it as an “unprecedented use of the military justice system to investigate a political adversary,” as the Washington Post reported at the time.
In January 2026, Hegseth issued a formal letter of censure against Kelly — a first step toward reducing the retired Navy captain’s military rank and pension — and called for potential criminal prosecution. Trump publicly backed the effort. “Because of that, Donald Trump wanted me hanged and now prosecuted, and now we’re at the point where they want to reduce me in rank,” Kelly said in a January interview on NPR.
Kelly filed suit against Hegseth, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Navy in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on January 12, alleging the campaign against him constituted unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech. On February 12, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon — a George W. Bush appointee — sided with Kelly in a scathing 29-page ruling, writing that Hegseth had trampled the senator’s First Amendment rights and that the Pentagon had targeted “unquestionably protected speech” that deserved “special protection” under the law. Hegseth immediately announced he would appeal. A grand jury in Washington separately declined, on February 10, to approve criminal charges against Kelly and the other lawmakers involved in the video.
Kelly’s Criticisms of Hegseth’s Conduct
In Wednesday’s interview, Kelly returned to a theme he has pressed repeatedly since the Iran war began: that Hegseth’s personal conduct is incompatible with the gravity of the office. Speaking to MacFarlane, the senator framed Hegseth’s targeting of him as an exercise in political theater rather than genuine military justice concerns.
“I said something he didn’t like, and the president said I should be hanged, executed, prosecuted,” Kelly said. “Pete Hegseth performs for one person.”
Kelly has made similar assessments in other forums. In a March interview published by What I’m Hearing, he described watching Hegseth address senior Pentagon leadership. “He was running around the stage talking about killing people, lethality, no rules of engagement. Saying things to admirals and generals and senior enlisted personnel like that — it’s not like anything they’ve ever heard in their careers before,” Kelly said. “I think what comes to mind is ‘cringe.'”
In April, Kelly separately criticized Hegseth for invoking Christianity to justify the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran. “I’ve never heard a secretary of defense say things like this,” he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, adding that it was “pretty objectionable that the secretary of defense is trying to intertwine religion with combat operations on the other side of the planet.”
Kelly’s Military Record and the Feud’s Stakes
The dispute carries particular weight given Kelly’s background. A retired U.S. Navy captain, he flew 39 combat missions during Desert Storm, logged more than 5,000 flight hours and 375 carrier landings, and flew into space four times as a NASA astronaut. He served 25 years in the Navy before retiring and entering politics, and is considered a potential 2028 presidential contender.
Kelly noted in the MacFarlane interview that, contrary to how the administration refers to the agency, the statutory name of the Department of Defense has not been changed. “We did not change the name of the agency,” he said. “Only Congress can do that.”
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on Kelly’s Wednesday remarks. Hegseth has appealed Judge Leon’s February ruling; that appeal was pending at the time of publication.