Tuesday night Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) made clear that he won’t back down on asking active service members to obey the law.
Kelly, who served as a Navy captain, appeared last week in a video alongside five other Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds, telling active-duty service members they have a duty to refuse illegal orders.
The Department of War (fka the Department of Defense) announced on Monday that, having purportedly “received serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly “in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 688, and other applicable regulations,” it would be launching “a thorough review … to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the video made by “the ‘Seditious Six”‘ (as he dubbed Kelly et al) “was despicable, reckless, and false.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has re-shared on Truth Social calls for those who appeared in the video to be charged with “treason and sedition,” court-martialed, and even sentenced to death/hanged.
In his initial response on Monday, Kelly said of Hegseth and Trump’s comments, “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”
Elaborating on his position during Tuesday night’s Kimmel visit, Kelly said, “I’ll tell you this: I’m not backing down. We said something very simple, that members of the military need to follow the law. We wanted to say we have their backs. [Trump’s] response? Kill them.”
“We said, ‘Follow the law,’ and the president of the Unites States says, ‘Kill them, hang them, execute them, try them for sedition,'” Kelly reiterated. “Isn’t this the guy who said two months ago we need to stop this political violence issue? He didn’t even make it to Thanksgiving.”
“Do you ever miss the cold vacuum of space?”—Jimmy Kimmel to Sen. Mark Kelly, whom Trump has publicly threatened with execution pic.twitter.com/kL1j4d709q
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) November 26, 2025
Kelly said that while he doesn’t know Hegseth well, he knows the former Fox News personality is “completely unqualified” to run the DoD. The decorated Navy vet then noted how bizarre it is that Hegseth aims to “prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“It’s so ridiculous,” he avowed. “It’s almost like you cant make this s**t up.”
The Kelly-Kimmel convo wrapped with the former acknowledging that he and the latter have now both been targeted by President Trump for speaking freely: “This seems to be a habit he’s developed!”
Once upon a time it was a trial in Nurenberg. It was run by the United States. The nazis claimed that they only followed orders and were not responsible. Most of them were hanged.