Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a retired U.S. Navy captain, slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for linking his religious beliefs with the military, calling his behavior “objectionable.”
In recent months, Hegseth has come under intense criticism for injecting his faith into his governmental duties. He has held Christian prayer services at the Pentagon and invited controversial religious leaders to speak to agency employees. And he has used Christianity to justify the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, a Muslim-majority country.
During a press briefing, the defense secretary told Americans they should take a knee and pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
“I’ve never heard a secretary of defense say things like this,” Kelly said of Hegseth’s rhetoric. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
The senator’s criticism of Hegseth follows months of back-and-forth between the pair, as they are locked in a legal battle stemming from Kelly’s participation in a video calling on troops to resist unlawful orders from the Trump administration.
Following the release of the video, the Pentagon, under Hegseth’s direction, took steps to downgrade the former Navy pilot’s military retirement rank and reduce his pension.
While Kelly, who served for over two decades, acknowledged on Wednesday’s “Morning Joe” that he is a Catholic and “a person of faith,” he said religion should not be used by the government to justify a military operation, adding that he found it “pretty objectionable that the secretary of defense is trying to intertwine religion with combat operations on the other side of the planet.”
“We put these service members at significant risk,” Kelly continued, arguing that instead of preaching and urging Americans to pray, “what the government should be doing and saying is giving the American people a coherent rationale for why we are in this conflict and how it helps them.”
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“I don’t see how this helps the American people afford their rent and groceries and gasoline; those things are all going to go up because Donald Trump went into this without a strategic plan, with no vision, with no goal, with no timeline and no exit strategy,” he said.
Kelly, who has said he would “seriously consider” a 2028 run for president, also raised concern about the possibility of a ground operation in Iran, which he predicted would be more difficult than many may believe.
“It is just going to put those individuals at significant risk of losing their lives,” he explained. “This isn’t even like conflict with Iraq. This is a much more significant fighting force that we would be up against.”
Instead of launching a ground invasion, Kelly urged Trump to find an off-ramp, saying, “I would suggest that this administration really thinks hard and comes up with a plan, like a rational plan, on how do you extract yourself from a situation that you created.”
“The worst thing that could happen at this point would be the loss of American service members on the ground in a foreign country,” he said.
You can watch Kelly’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”