The View cohosts were fired up when discussing Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump‘s defense secretary, for announcing a Pentagon investigation into Arizona Senator Mark Kelly over his participation in a PSA advising military members that they should refuse illegal orders.
Joy Behar kicked off the conversation by relating the news of that investigation to the losses Trump’s administration sustained when the court cases against two of his perceived personal rivals, James Comey and Letitia James, were dismissed after a judge found that the appointment of the prosecutor in the case was unlawful.
After reviewing footage of Kelly responding to the announcement — “I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial, and that was that members of the military should follow the law, and in response to that, Donald Trump said I should be executed. I should be hanged. I should be prosecuted. This is not about the law. This is about the media cycle, and it’s about intimidation,” he said — the cohosts weighed in.
“I don’t imagine this is going to go very far,” Alyssa Farah Griffin predicted. “So listen, all of us watched that video of democratic veterans talking about not following illegal orders. The language was very specific…. I worked at the Pentagon… rank-and-file members, from the first enlisted to four-star generals, are taught that their duty is to the Constitution and they do not follow unlawful orders, something that is built into the military. There is no there, there.”
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Griffin also floated her own theory as to why Hegseth is pushing for this investigation, saying, “I think the timing of Hegseth really cracking down on a distinguished veteran like Mark Kelly comes because he’s being sidelined in these Ukraine negotiations. He’s nowhere to be found in the discussions, and a deputy of his, the secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, has emerged as kind of a power player in this, so I think he’s doing it to try to get in good with Trump, to be like, ‘Look, I’m fighting your fights for you.’ But it’s going to go very similarly to how the Comey and Leticia James cases went, where, when you do something that doesn’t look like there’s merit there, it’s going to fall apart. The president’s going to be mad, and you’re going to be embarrassed.”
Sunny Hostin, after reiterating her oft-stated position that Hegseth is not qualified for the job, added, “What’s interesting to me is that Trump is on this revenge campaign against his political enemies, and it’s just at least, in my view, the law is working. The courts are working.”
Meanwhile, Ana Navarro guessed that Trump was simply “trying to distract the American public from the Epstein files,” along with the recent unfavorable-to-Republican election results and economic woes.
Sara Haines called Trump’s threats against Kelly, which Hegseth reshared, “grossly irresponsible,” pointing to the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the fact that Kelly’s own wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head in an act of political violence. “We were all told to put the to bring the rhetoric down. Well, the rhetoric needs to go down, starting from the top.”
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