Pete Hegseth claims Mark Kelly 'blabbed' on TV, senator fires back with video evidence

U.S. Senator Mark Kelly clapped back at Pete Hegseth on Sunday, after being accused by the Defense Secretary of disclosing classified military information on television. The accusation stems from Kelly saying in an interview that it would take the U.S. years to replenish the munitions expended in the Iran war. Hegseth claimed that he was "blabbing on TV" about classified information. In response, the Arizona Senator shared a video of Hegseth making a similar claim during a congressional hearing.

In the video, Hegseth was being questioned by Kelly about the timeframe for the U.S. to expect its munitions used in the Iran war to be replenished. The Defense Secretary was making a case for a higher military budget. "What this budget does, I mean, months and years, fast," he said. Kelly noted the "years" bit and questioned him further on that.

"I said months," Hegseth said, "And then you said years," Kelly responded. The Defense Secretary said that the time depended on the weapons system, and pointed to the Biden administration's decision to send munitions to Ukraine. In a recent interview on CBS's 'Face the Nation', Kelly expressed concern over the time it would take to replenish several kinds of weapons systems: Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM-3, THAAD rounds, and Patriot rounds.

"We've expended a lot of munitions, and that means the American people are less safe, whether it's a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted," he said. On Monday, Kelly took to X to provide an update on a lawsuit he filed against Hegseth for violating First Amendment rights. He said that he was at a U.S. Court of Appeals for the same on Thursday.

"I appreciate that the court made this case a priority because it has a significant impact on the First Amendment rights of over 2 million retired servicemembers," he wrote. Kelly slammed President Donald Trump's request to Congress for a $1.5 trillion defence budget, and criticized the highly contentious White House ballroom project. "The corruption in and around this President and his friends and family is almost unimaginable in its scale and scope. We have real problems that are being ignored and others that aren't being addressed with a reasonable and rational approach," he added.

According to a report in the New York Times, the federal appeals court has also signalled that it was unwilling to allow Hegseth to punish Kelly for urging active service members not to follow illegal orders. The Justice Department approached the appeals court to overturn a lower court order blocking the Defense Secretary from taking action against the Arizona Senator. Two of the three judges seemed inclined to side with the former Navy captain.

"These are people who served their country," said Judge Florence Y. Pan. "Many of them put their lives on the line, and you're saying that they have to give up their retired status in order to say something that is a textbook example—taught at West Point and the Naval Academy—that you can disobey illegal orders."