Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth escalated his ongoing feud with Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly on Sunday, calling for a Pentagon legal review of comments Kelly made on national television regarding US weapons stockpiles depleted by the ongoing conflict with Iran.
Kelly appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and told host Margaret Brennan that he found it “shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines” when asked whether the Pentagon had briefed lawmakers on the war’s impact on military readiness.
The senator stated that US stockpiles of Tomahawk cruise missiles, Army Tactical Missile System rockets, SM-3 interceptors, THAAD rounds, and Patriot interceptors have all been significantly depleted, and added that it could take years to replenish them, with potential consequences for any future conflict with China in the western Pacific.
Hegseth responded on X within hours, writing: “Captain Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a CLASSIFIED Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review.”
Kelly pushed back immediately, posting a video of Hegseth’s own testimony at a public Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 30, during which the Defense Secretary himself said it would take “months and years” to replenish certain weapons stockpiles.
“We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles,” Kelly wrote. “That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is.”
This marks the second time Hegseth has opened a formal Pentagon review into Kelly, who is a retired Navy captain and former astronaut and served as Arizona’s US Senator after a career as a military pilot and NASA astronaut.
The first investigation was launched in November 2025 after Kelly joined five other Democratic senators with military or intelligence backgrounds in releasing a video urging US service members to refuse illegal orders, a statement that drew the direct ire of both Hegseth and President Trump.
A federal court blocked the Pentagon’s subsequent attempts to formally censure Kelly and retroactively demote him from his retired rank of captain, ruling that the actions likely violated his First Amendment rights and those of millions of military retirees.
A three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard oral arguments on the government’s appeal last week and appeared broadly sceptical of Hegseth’s position, making the latest legal review the newest front in what has become one of the most contentious civil-military disputes of the Trump administration’s second term.