Senator Mark Kelly went on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on Monday and reframed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s second investigation threat against him as a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability for the failures of Trump’s Iran war — saying the only investigation that matters is into who ordered 15,000 strikes that left 13 Americans dead, gas prices at $4.80 a gallon in Arizona, and U.S. weapons stockpiles critically depleted.
“Not only is he ill-prepared, unprepared, unqualified for this job, he doesn’t want to be held accountable for his actions,” Kelly told Tapper, in a clip highlighted by his official Senate office.
What Kelly Said Hegseth Is Really Trying to Avoid
Tapper asked Kelly directly: what exactly did he say that Hegseth is alleging was classified? Kelly’s answer was unambiguous.
“Nothing I said was classified,” Kelly told Tapper. “We had this discussion in an open hearing. When you are going to hit 15,000 targets, you’re going to use a lot of munitions. It’s not classified. I mean, 15,000 strikes consume an enormous amount. And by the way, he’s asking for $25 to $50 billion to replenish these munitions where he said it’s going to take years.”
“What he’s trying to avoid is accountability,” Kelly continued. “This thing is not going the way they expected. They went into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline. Now they have no exit strategy, and they’re flailing. And when somebody like me starts asking them questions, whether it’s I make a point on a show like yours or in an open hearing, they don’t want to give specific answers because they probably, at this point, they’ve realized that they’ve made a number of mistakes.”
The Real Investigation Kelly Wants
Kelly immediately pivoted from defending himself to going on offense — demanding accountability for the war’s concrete costs.
“The only investigation we need, the one we need right now, is after 15,000 strikes, all we got out of this — we have 13 dead Americans, we got the Strait of Hormuz closed, gas prices in Arizona are $4.80 a gallon, seem to be heading up, and we have a secretary of defense who not only is ill-prepared, unprepared, and unqualified for this job, he doesn’t want to be held accountable for the actions,” Kelly said.
He then described a woman from Arizona who texted him about a week and a half earlier saying she could no longer afford to fill her car with gas for the 300-mile round trip to her child’s cancer treatment. “She doesn’t know what she’s going to do,” Kelly told Tapper. “And this president, sometimes he thinks this is a joke.”
The “Captain” Jab — and the First Amendment Case
Tapper pressed Kelly on Hegseth’s use of the word “Captain” in quotation marks in his social media post — a reference to Hegseth’s ongoing effort to reduce Kelly’s retired military rank, which would lower his pension and retirement pay.
Kelly used the question to broaden the stakes far beyond himself. “This is not about me. This is about 2 million retired service members,” Kelly said. “One of the really interesting parts was at the end of that hearing last week, when Pete Hegseth’s lawyer — which is a DOJ lawyer — said that if any service member like myself, who served 20 or 25 years in the military, if they want their First Amendment rights, they should give up their retirement, give up their pension, give up their healthcare, and then they would be free to speak out.”
“How un-American is that?” Kelly continued. “People who have given the most for this country are being told: if you don’t shut up, you could lose your pension, you could lose your rank and retirement. That’s not what it says in the Constitution. And there’s no precedent for that in any military law.”
Where the Court Case Stands
Tapper also asked Kelly about the status of his lawsuit against Hegseth over the first investigation — the one stemming from the November 2025 lawful orders video. Kelly confirmed he was at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week after Hegseth’s team appealed the preliminary injunction that had blocked the rank reduction proceedings.
“We’ll see how that turns out,” Kelly said. He added that the DOJ lawyer’s position at the hearing — that service members must surrender their pensions to exercise free speech — was itself a stark illustration of what the administration is arguing in court, and that it applies not just to him but to every retired service member in the country.
Kelly on Trump and the Iran War
When Tapper played Trump’s “massive life support” ceasefire remarks and asked for Kelly’s take, Kelly was direct: “I think he doesn’t know what to do at this point. And this is what happens when you don’t listen to people around you.”
Kelly said Trump is surrounded by “yes men” — pointing to Hegseth as the clearest example — and suggested that General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, may be one of the few voices offering the president realistic assessments. He said Trump’s belief that the Strait of Hormuz closure would last only “two or three days” was an early sign of how disconnected the president was from military reality. “Donald Trump thinks he knows more than everybody about everything,” Kelly told Tapper. “This is a guy who said because he went to military high school, he knows more than admirals and generals. He does not. His depth of knowledge on this stuff is an inch deep.”
The Broader Cost Kelly Is Putting on the Record
Kelly closed his CNN appearance by connecting the war’s human and economic toll to the accountability question at the center of his dispute with Hegseth. Thirteen dead Americans. 150 dead Iranian children. Thousands of other civilian casualties. Gas at $4.80 in Arizona. A woman who can’t afford to drive her child to cancer treatment. A depleted weapons stockpile that will take years and $25 to $50 billion to replenish.
“Because of that, we are all less safe,” Kelly said. Hegseth’s response to those facts has been to open a second investigation of the senator raising them. Kelly’s response, delivered directly to Jake Tapper and now amplified through his official Senate office, is that the administration is not investigating a classified disclosure — it is trying to silence the person demanding answers for a war that has gone badly wrong.