Sen. Kelly tells service members, ‘You can refuse illegal orders’
Sen. Mark Kelly and other Democratic members of Congress had a message for U.S. troops and members of the intelligence community.
Provided by Sen. Mark Kelly’s office
- Sen. Mark Kelly is a Democratic senator from Arizona with a background as a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut.
- Kelly and five other Democrats drew criticism from Donald Trump for a social media message about unlawful military orders.
- He is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and they co-founded an organization advocating for gun safety regulations.
- Kelly has focused on foreign affairs, military aid and domestic manufacturing as a senator, notably helping shape the CHIPS and Science Act.
Sen. Mark Kelly has once again found himself a prominent enemy of President Donald Trump, who resorted to an all-caps attack on the Arizona Democrat for taking part in a social media message cryptically reminding those in the military to disregard unlawful orders.
The message, joined by five other Democrats, didn’t point to any specific action, but come as the U.S. has conducted military strikes in international waters on boats it contends were on drug missions and as Trump has reportedly approved covert operations against Venezuela.
Trump called the Democrats’ message “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
It brings a spotlight to Kelly, who has tangled with the second Trump administration several times in its first year back in office and as his name is thrown into conversations about 2028 presidential possibilities.
Here’s what you need to know about Kelly.
Who is Mark Kelly?
Mark Kelly has been in the Senate since winning a 2020 special election and is a man whose life story includes several threads that would be the biggest part of most people’s biography.
He was a Navy combat pilot. He was an astronaut, and so was his twin brother, Scott. His wife survived being shot in the head. He is the author of several books and one of the wealthier members of the Senate.
How old is Mark Kelly?
Mark Edward Kelly grew up in West Orange, N.J., to parents who both worked as police officers. He was born on Feb. 21, 1964, so he is 61.
Who is Mark Kelly’s twin brother?
Kelly’s twin brother, Scott Joseph Kelly, is a veteran of four space flights. Now retired from NASA, Scott Kelly commanded the International Space Station on three expeditions.
Who is Mark Kelly’s wife?
Kelly is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona.
They met on a U.S.-China trade mission in 2003 and were married in 2007.
At the time of their wedding, Kelly was still an astronaut and Giffords, a Tucson native who had been a state lawmaker, was a freshman in Congress.
On Jan. 8, 2011, she was shot in the head at a constituent event near Tucson by a man with paranoid schizophrenia. Six people died and 12 others besides Giffords were wounded.
Afterward, Kelly and Giffords formed an organization now called Giffords that advocates for what they describe as common-sense gun safety regulations.
Kelly emerged as a national spokesperson on the issue for years ahead of his career in politics. Giffords resigned her seat in Congress in 2012.
Kelly’s first marriage ended in divorce after 15 years. He has two adult daughters.
Where did Mark Kelly get his education?
Kelly received a bachelor’s degree with highest honors in marine engineering and nautical science from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
He was a Navy fighter pilot and during Operation Desert Storm was stationed on the USS Midway, from which he flew 39 missions.
During his military career, Kelly received numerous medals, including the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and multiple Air Medals. He retired as a captain.
What did Mark Kelly do in his NASA career?
In 1996, NASA accepted Kelly and his brother, Scott, as space shuttle pilots.
Mark Kelly flew his first shuttle mission in December 2001. He flew a second mission in 2006 and a third in 2008.
His final mission came in 2011, just months after Giffords was shot. He and NASA decided to keep him as commander of the team.
Giffords traveled from Houston, where she was recovering from her injuries, to Florida for the launch.
Three weeks after returning to Earth, Kelly announced he would retire from NASA later that year, citing his wife’s medical needs.
How did Mark Kelly get into politics?
He often jokes that politics was his wife’s vocational interest, not his.
Kelly first entered politics in 2019 when he announced he was running for the U.S. Senate in 2020.
It was a special election to complete the final two years of the term won in 2016 by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. McCain died of brain cancer in August 2018, too late for an election that year. Then-Gov. Doug Ducey appointed a temporary replacement, former three-term Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona.
Kyl stepped down at the end of that year and Ducey named U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, to replace him at the outset of the next Congress. McSally had just lost the 2018 race for the state’s other Senate seat to Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat who later became an independent.
Sinema began a six-year term, while McSally had to fight to keep her seat in the 2020 election. In the end, she could not. Kelly defeated McSally by 2 percentage points.
He, too, had to quickly run again because he started by filling the final two years of the 2016 term started by McCain.
In 2022, Kelly defeated Republican Blake Masters for a term that doesn’t expire until after the 2028 elections.
Sen. Mark Kelly shares his thoughts on what Arizonans want
“I think Arizonans want people who will work hard and are not going to try and divide us,” Sen. Mark Kelly told the media on Nov. 12, 2022.
Joe Rondone/The Republic
What stands out in his Senate tenure?
Kelly was willing to set aside the legislative filibuster in January 2022 to pass a voting-rights bill because he said it was needed to preserve a foundational right when it was under attack. His seatmate, Sinema, was unwilling to dispense with the filibuster and the voting rights measure died due to a Republican procedural blockade.
Kelly has advocated military aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, and he has made several trips to Ukraine.
Kelly has shown support for Taiwan as tensions with mainland China rise, and his signature legislative accomplishment likely only adds to Beijing’s irritation with him.
Kelly helped shape the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides billions in taxpayer subsidies to bring advanced manufacturing operations into the U.S. That legislation is intended to help make the nation less dependent on Chinese-made semiconductors.
It is also a direct boon to Arizona. Taipei-based TSMC has a facility under construction in the northwest Valley and is a prime recipient of federal subsidies. That undertaking is billed as the largest foreign direct investment project in American history.
Kelly notably stood apart from his party when he criticized the Biden administration for allowing the southern border to become a “crisis” and voted to pass a bipartisan border-security bill.
That measure failed after Trump, who was out of office at the time, urged Republicans to defeat the bill to avoid handing Biden a legislative victory during an election year.
In 2025, Kelly authored a white paper urging a new tax on artificial intelligence company revenues to create a fund used to protect American jobs and ensure “shared prosperity” from the emerging technology.
Kelly has an evident interest in foreign affairs and is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee.
His background in science also makes him an advocate for mitigating climate change.
Why was Mark Kelly considered for the 2024 Democratic ticket?
When then-Vice President Kamala Harris took over the nomination from Biden, she seriously considered Kelly as her running mate.
His military background and ability to connect with more than Democrats offered a tantalizing possibility for the new ticket.
Beyond that, Kelly is a reliable Democrat who casts himself as an independent thinker who ran as a centrist in 2020.
In her own 2025 postmortem, Harris wrote that she was unsure how Kelly would handle the attacks to come if he was the VP pick.
“He also hadn’t yet had an ‘Oh s—’ moment in his relatively short political career,” she wrote. “I wasn’t sure how he would cope with the kind of garbage Trump would throw at him.”
Kelly deflected the Harris concern in an October 2025 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I’m pretty good handling garbage. That’s never been a problem,” he said “It was an honor to be considered.”
Is Mark Kelly running for president in 2028?
In 2025, he isn’t saying so.
After his rushed vice presidential vetting produced no disqualifying storylines, some political pundits mentioned him as a 2028 possibility.
Kelly has been among the most prolific fundraisers in the Senate, and he has credibility with key segments of the Democratic Party: those who support more restrictive gun laws and those who see climate change as a top priority.
Beyond that, his biography, with chapters in the military and in space, looks enviable for any candidate.
He has become a more prominent voice in the Democratic opposition to the Trump administration, further raising his profile.
But at every turn Kelly has sidestepped the question, unlike Gallego, who has also drawn presidential speculation and who has at least acknowledged an interest in exploring the matter.
What are Mark Kelly’s controversies?
Trump’s accusation of sedition stands as perhaps the most consequential, but far from the only time Kelly has crossed the president or his allies.
In October 2025, Kelly and his latest seatmate, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, had a tense discussion with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, over the extended delay in seating then-Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Arizona. That encounter happened with the Capitol Hill press corps documenting the whole thing.
Early in the second Trump administration, Kelly traded insults with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who was then overseeing the mass layoffs across the federal government.
Their spat began when Musk incorrectly claimed Biden “abandoned” astronauts whose spacecraft could not fetch them from the International Space Station on time. Kelly defended the reputation of a Danish astronaut from Musk’s insults and Musk turned on Kelly.
He called Kelly “a Dem donor shill.” Kelly challenged Musk to summon “the nerve to climb into a rocket ship” to discuss it with him.
Musk later called Kelly a “traitor” for traveling to Ukraine in a show of support. Kelly announced on Musk’s X social media site that he was dumping his Tesla and bought a Chevy instead.
Republicans hit Kelly in 2020 as beholden to China, citing capital funding from a Chinese technology company used to help get World View Enterprises, a company Kelly co-founded, up and running in Tucson.
That company uses balloons for launching lower-altitude “stratollites” for commercial and government mapping and surveillance. Its clients have included NASA and the Pentagon.
Among the early investors in World View was Tencent Holdings, a Chinese company that operates a popular messaging app in that country and that has close working ties to the government in Beijing.
Kelly dismissed concerns that Beijing had undue influence on him at the time, and his rhetoric on China in the years since suggests a willingness to buck Beijing.
In 2023, for example, Kelly was part of a bipartisan group that met with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen during her visit to the U.S. He visited the island later that year as part of an Arizona trade delegation.
He told The Arizona Republic that America’s close trade relations with Taipei and the growth of semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona are an irritant to Beijing.
“My sense is this is something (the Chinese) are not in favor of, this economic relationship that we have with Taiwan, but that’s not up to them,” he said.
Also in 2020, Kelly apologized for a joke he made about the effects of a year in space on his brother to the Boy Scouts of America.
“It’s gotten so bad, that we recently had to release him back into the wild,” Kelly said to laughter. “He’s like halfway between an orangutan and a Howler Monkey. We’ve even changed his name to Rodrigo. He lives in the woods.”
Republican businessman Moses Sanchez posted video of the event on social media, calling it “shameful” and showed Kelly “making a racist joke to an all-white crowd. He must think people named Rodrigo look like monkeys.”
Kelly said it was a joke that fell flat.
“My brother’s year in space was really hard on him and we tried to bring some light to his difficult ordeal, but this comment does not do that and I apologize and deeply regret it,” he said.
