WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kelly said Friday that “Trump dragged us into a war with Iran with no idea what he was doing,” and that “we deserve answers about why he got us in this mess, but this Administration has none to give.”
Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, Navy combat veteran, and retired astronaut, posted the statement on X on Sept. 25 with a clip from his Sept. 20 appearance on MS NOW’s The Assignment. In the clip he said the United States entered the conflict “without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, without an exit strategy,” and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “tried to attack as many targets as possible.”
Trump dragged us into a war with Iran with no idea what he was doing. We deserve answers about why he got us in this mess, but this Administration has none to give.
Hegseth’s on-camera tallies are on the Pentagon record. In a March 12 transcript he said U.S. and Israeli forces had struck “over 15,000 enemy targets,” “well over 1,000 a day.” A March 30 briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine put the U.S. figure at “more than 11,000 targets” over 30 days. In later briefings Hegseth and Caine cited more than 13,000 targets, including more than 4,000 they called dynamic. Kelly’s clip quoted Hegseth saying “we set new records” and moving from “thousands of targets in a week” to “10,000” and “12,000.”
Caine, at those briefings, listed three campaign objectives: eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile systems, destroy the Iranian navy, and prevent Iran from rapidly reconstituting combat power. Hegseth has called Operation Epic Fury “laser focused” and “on plan,” and has declined to set a public end date. Kelly’s clip argued that “when you don’t have a goal, it’s hard to come up with a target list,” and that “the plan was just to bomb as much stuff as possible.”
Kelly has put the same demand in writing. A Sept. 17 letter with Sen. Elissa Slotkin and other colleagues asked Hegseth for a full cost accounting and said the president “launched with no strategic plan” a war “Congress never authorized.” An earlier June letter with Sens. Adam Schiff, Tim Kaine, Chuck Schumer, and others asked the White House to release the Office of Legal Counsel theory for treating hostilities as terminated after an April 7 ceasefire while strikes and a Hormuz blockade continued.
The Assignment interview was framed around Rep. Thomas Massie’s privileged articles of impeachment against Hegseth. Massie’s Sept. 15 release said Hegseth “is operating in contravention of three specific provisions of the War Powers Resolution of 1973,” including hostilities past 90 days without authorization. House GOP leaders adjourned members for the midterms before a floor vote. Kelly told Antonia Hylton, “We’re a country of laws and there should be accountability.”
Major combat in Operation Epic Fury began Feb. 28. Senate Democrats have used that date in War Powers votes, including the 49–50 tally on H. Con. Res. 89. Kelly’s Friday post did not name Massie, Caine, or a specific briefing date. Arizona votes Nov. 3.