**Interview with Senator Mark Kelly on U.S. Military Actions and Domestic Issues**
*“Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” – October 19, 2025*

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**MARGARET BRENNAN:** And we begin with Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who’s here in studio with us. Good morning to you, Senator.

**SEN. MARK KELLY:** Good morning.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** A lot to get to. I want to start on what you are seeing as a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. There are about 10,000 U.S. forces now built up in the Caribbean area, either on ships or in Puerto Rico. Three B-2 and B-52 bombers flew near Venezuela last week. There have now been six maritime strikes by U.S. Special Operations Forces. What is this adding up to? Is the Trump administration planning regime change in Venezuela?

**SEN. KELLY:** Well, I hope not. Regime change hasn’t ever really worked out well for us as a nation where we’ve supported that — whether it was in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan. It doesn’t go the way we think, and it puts a tremendous number of Americans in harm’s way.

The U.S. military, the guys flying those missions now in B-52s close to the coast, those folks are at risk, members of the United States Navy now in this operation, which traditionally is a law enforcement operation, now escalating to something maybe, as the president talks about, regime change. I think this is the wrong move for this president. The Coast Guard has the resources to do this.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** To interdict—

**SEN. KELLY:** To interdict drugs. That’s the way this has traditionally been done. And I do worry about the legal authorities, or lack thereof, that the United States military has to conduct these kinds of strikes.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** And you’ve been briefed on what legal authorities are being invoked. Do you think they are insufficient at this point?

**SEN. KELLY:** They had a very hard time explaining to us the rationale, the legal rationale for doing this and the constitutionality of doing it. When you consider what the law of warfare, especially at sea, was — a very convoluted argument. It also included, by the way, a secret list of over 20 narco organizations, drug trafficking cartels. They wouldn’t share with us the list.

So the brief we got had a tremendous number of holes in it, and they had to go round and around to give us the legal rationale for doing this. And what I worry about, Margaret, are all these young military personnel that might find out, you know, months from now, that what they did was illegal.

And then you get to what are we trying to accomplish here? We want to keep fentanyl out of the United States. And I don’t know how widely known this is, but those routes through the Caribbean on boats are predominantly used to bring cocaine to Europe.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** To Europe?

**SEN. KELLY:** To Europe, yes.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Not to U.S. shores.

**SEN. KELLY:** That’s right. Fentanyl tends to come from a different way, and we do want to keep fentanyl out of the United States.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** But to this point, you just said the legality of what’s being done. CBS reporting indicates that the commander who was running Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, was pressured to leave his command post early, just a year into a four-year post, and that there were tensions with Secretary Hegseth that were leading up to that departure, which Hegseth characterized as just a retirement. You speak to the top officers—can they, with confidence, refuse unlawful orders without fear of retribution or even losing their pensions?

**SEN. KELLY:** Well, I don’t know about losing their pension, but they should. This is more important than any single person. This is about our democracy at this point, and those admirals and generals, they need to speak truth to power.

I’ve had conversations with the most senior members of our military about this specific thing. They cannot be breaking the law. Doesn’t matter if the president or the Secretary of Defense tells them to do something. If it’s against the law, they have to say no. They’re not required to follow an unlawful order. So we expect that from them.

I don’t know the exact circumstances why the admiral quit. He hasn’t said publicly yet. I expect in time we’re going to find out more.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** But you think he did quit? It wasn’t just a retirement, suddenly?

**SEN. KELLY:** I don’t know. They could have forced him out. He could have quit. He could have said, “Hey, you’re not accepting my advice, you need somebody else in here.” I don’t know. I hate to speculate about it.

He had a long service in the U.S. military —

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** 37 years.

**SEN. KELLY:** Highly decorated, and a tremendous leader. I appreciate his service to this country.

All of us, all U.S. citizens, would be better served if this administration listened to the advice of those military leaders, especially the Secretary of Defense, who thinks he is really good at this. He should have never had this job. He was unqualified for the job, and in my view, the president should have fired him multiple times.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** On Ukraine, you’ve been an outspoken supporter of it. Some of the pilots trained in your state. After President Zelenskyy met with President Trump on Friday, he said they sort of agreed to disagree on whether to get these long-range missiles, these Tomahawks, that would allow them to fire into Russia. Where does that stand? President Biden wouldn’t do this either.

**SEN. KELLY:** Yeah. So I spoke to Zelenskyy three weeks ago in New York, right after his meeting with Donald Trump, and we talked about Tomahawks in that meeting. Much longer range — over 1,000 miles, 700-pound warhead. Really good—

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Game changing.

**SEN. KELLY:** Game changing. The president said he would consider giving them this weapon system. And then he had a conversation with Vladimir Putin.

And I think it’s important for people to recognize, Vladimir Putin is a former KGB officer. He is a master manipulator. The president has one view. Then he talks to Vladimir Putin, and he changes his story on this.

Of course, Putin does not want Ukraine to get a longer-range missile that could go after targets deep into Russia, beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg, by the way. It can range targets much further. It’s a very accurate, very survivable weapon, and Putin has a conversation with him, and those weapons are now off the table.

Hey, I think Ukraine can handle it if we can give them enough rounds, and we have them in our inventory, and enough launchers. Ground launchers are rather new to this system, something we got rid of for a long period of time. They’ve demonstrated their ability to operate a sophisticated weapon system like the F-16. They could handle this and it would help.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Zelenskyy says they’re going to continue to try to persuade President Trump. I have to ask you about the shutdown. The Republican Leader John Thune has offered to sit down with Democrats to discuss Obamacare, but on the condition that Democrats end the shutdown. He posted this on social media. Can you bank this as a win and agree to start negotiations?

**SEN. KELLY:** That’s what we want. We want negotiations—

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Is it enough?

**SEN. KELLY:** On how to fix— I didn’t look at his tweet, but what we need is to fix this skyrocketing premium. They’re going to go up on November 1 for people; they can’t afford it. People in my state—

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Either way, they are going up.

**SEN. KELLY:** I’ve talked to so many people. This woman, Emily, whose husband is a pastor who has three kids, says without the Affordable Care Act, she cannot have insurance for her children. They don’t get it through his work.

So what we need to do is fix this health care premium issue and open the government.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** But don’t you need to do that before November 1, when premiums go up? Are you going to end the shutdown before November 1?

**SEN. KELLY:** I would like to. I’d like to. We should be able to wrap this up this week if they will sit down and have a negotiation with us. The president has spent one hour negotiating this issue with leadership in Congress. That’s it, one hour. They need to get in a room and stay in a room until we can hash this out.

The president has said he wants to fix this premium thing and he wants the government open. That’s what we want.

**MARGARET BRENNAN:** Well, we’ll see if there’s progress this week. Senator, thank you for your time.

**SEN. KELLY:** Thank you.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-kelly-arizona-democrat-face-the-nation-10-19-2025/