AZ State Representative: Sen. Mark Kelly, ‘Stop Grandstanding’ With the ‘Benefit of Firing and Forgetting’
In response to the six Democrats encouraging military personnel and intelligence officials to defy President Donald Trump, a conservative Arizona state lawmaker and veteran offers his perspective.
In a recent 90-second video first posted to Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s X account, six lawmakers — Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan—addressed U.S. service members directly.
The Democrat lawmakers cautioned military personnel and intelligence officials about what they termed “threats to our Constitution” that were emerging “right here at home” —an implicit allusion to certain initiatives adopted by the Trump administration.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth responded on X, saying, “The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false. Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger.”
The Gateway Pundit spoke to Nick Kupper, a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and Arizona State House Representative, who agreed with Hegseth. But he was particularly concerned about the remarks made by Sen. Kelly (D-AZ), who, like him, is a legislator representing the state of Arizona.
Kupper admitted, “When I saw Senator Kelly and the five other members who made a video very strongly insinuating that President Trump’s administration had already issued illegal, unlawful orders, it pissed me off.”
He then explained why, saying, “I’m one of the people who lived through an actual unlawful order and was punished for doing exactly what they’re saying they want military members to do, which is to disobey unlawful orders.” Kupper was punished and subsequently forced into retirement after taking a lawful, religious objection to the 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate.
“For Senator Kelly to come out and try to act like he’s such a proponent of lawful orders and he really cares about the small military person trying to stand up against the man is preposterous,” Kupper said. “He couldn’t have cared less about me when I called his office in January 2022 over an actual unlawful order,” he shared, referring to the COVID-19 shot mandate.
“I brought up the fact that my base did not have any approved COVID vaccines, and I also brought up the U.S. code that specifically says you have to be given the option to refuse any emergency use product,” Kupper pointed out. “Even though I said it was an unlawful order, I was told that I just need to do what I was being told to do.”
Sen. Kelly and other members of the Democratic Party weren’t concerned at that time when countless service members faced coercion, punishment, threats, the loss of their careers, and more for refusing the “unlawful as implemented” shot.
Yet, Sen. Kelly is making headlines today, criticizing War Secretary Pete Hegseth in light of reports suggesting that Hegseth may have unlawfully engaged in war crimes during a military operation against a drug boat in September. The backlash follows the White House’s confirmation that the U.S. conducted a second strike on a vessel off the coast of Venezuela, resulting in the deaths of those who survived the initial attack.
The scenario reminds Kupper of a video he watched early in his career. In the video he posted on X, an Apache helicopter fires at insurgents in Iraq, and one of them manages to crawl out from under a truck, still alive. He is then fired upon a second time.
I don’t remember outrage from Dems during the Iraq war when this video came out in Jan ‘04 depicting a 2nd attack on an insurgent after he’d already been maimed. Congress hadn’t declared war then, but Rumsfeld didn’t violate LOAC?
Any comment @SenMarkKelly or @SenRubenGallego? https://t.co/FrWFI3WELb pic.twitter.com/QIMIMC4S7z
— Nick Kupper (@realnickkupper) December 2, 2025
“What’s the argument? President Trump has all the authority in the world to destroy a narco boat, considering those on the boat have been deemed terrorists,” Kupper noted. “If the problem is once they’ve been harmed, you can no longer shoot them, then we need to go back in history and take a look at the countless times this has been done, don’t we?”
“It seems that the outrage over shooting terrorists twice only applies when President Trump is in office and Democrats need something to fundraise off of,” he offered. “It’s time for Sen. Kelly to stop grandstanding. As a naval aviator, he shot missiles from a distance and flew off, [having] the benefit of firing and forgetting regardless of whether he had killed terrorists or children.”
In Kupper’s view, a stark illustration of this type of incident in the military took place on August 29, 2021, when the Biden administration claimed to have targeted terrorists, but instead ended up killing 10 civilians, among them seven children.
“Perhaps those types of orders don’t bother the Senator?” said Kupper.
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