Mark Kelly: 'I Am Not Going To Back Down'

The Arizona senator speaks out at the Renew Democracy Initiative’s Frontlines of Freedom conference.

Jan 05, 2026

Today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a letter of censure against Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, threatening the retired Navy captain with a reduction in pension and a demotion.

At issue is a video in which Kelly and five other members of Congress with military backgrounds reminded service members that they can refuse illegal orders. The defense secretary’s move is the latest step in a campaign against Kelly that has seen President Donald Trump threaten the senator and his colleagues with capital punishment.

Hegseth—despite the macho stage persona he tries to cultivate—hasn’t been able to deliver an execution for his boss, so instead he’s gone the route of procedural punishment.

The Renew Democracy Initiative (publisher of The Next Move) was proud to host Senator Kelly, along with Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, in conversation with RDI Chairman Garry Kasparov and CEO Uriel Epshtein at our Frontlines of Freedom Conference last month.

Here’s what Senator Kelly had to say at FOFCON about the Trump administration’s threats against him:

Senator Kelly: Usually, you would get... the senators would kind of stick together, stick up for one other, but they… I think a lot of folks feel like there would be repercussions if they got on the opposite side of the president on this issue. So it’s not there like it was.
Garry Kasparov: Now imagine the effect this silence has on average Americans. You have US senators… there are only a hundred of you, with so much power, Article I of the Constitution… silent! So ordinary guys, or even elected officials… that’s how it works. That’s what I call the Putinization of America.
Senator Kelly: 100%. And that’s why, in my situation, not only am I not going to back down and be intimidated, I want to make sure that nobody in our country perceives that I am backing off one inch. Because if I do that, if they perceive that, they will know that this guy can go after a senator, then they can go after them next.

The administration calls Senator Kelly’s video “seditious”—but the fact remains that members of the armed forces swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States, not to any individual. Free societies are built upon laws and charters, but they live and die by people’s willingness to protect those institutions.