People are getting "sick and tired" of Elon Musk "running the United States government," and his accusation that Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., is a traitor for visiting Ukraine is "beyond the pale," according to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
"Kelly is a military guy who serves his country [and] went to Ukraine to get a sense of how the Ukrainian people are responding to [President Donald Trump's] betrayal of the country, and you have Musk talking about Mark Kelly as a traitor," Sanders told CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday, reported The Hill.
Kelly is a decorated former naval aviator and retired astronaut, and Sanders said Musk's criticism of him is "disgusting."
"It is really unspeakable. It really is," Sanders said. "I think the American people are sick and tired of the wealthiest guy in the world running the United States government and calling, in this case, a guy who put his life on the line to defend us a traitor. That's beyond the pale."
Musk labeled Kelly as a "traitor" after the senator posted photographs on X, which the tech billionaire owns, about his trip to Ukraine.
Kelly said on the posts that "it's important to stand with Ukraine."
"Just left Ukraine," he said. "What I saw proved to me we can't give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine's security and can't be a giveaway to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."
"This war started with what Putin thought would be a three-day operation to take Kyiv and control of all of Ukraine," Kelly added. "Now, three years later, that hasn't happened.
"American and allied support has been a big reason why, but I saw how cutting it off now risks everything so many Ukrainians have laid down their lives for … Ukraine did not start this war, and they did not ask for the constant missile and drone attacks that have terrorized the population."
Kelly, while in Ukraine, interacted with Red Cross personnel and toured a military hospital. This trip marked his third visit to the war-torn country since 2023.
Kelly has also responded to Musk in a separate post.
"Elon, if you don't understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do," Kelly said.
Kelly and Musk have argued on social media before. Last month, he and his brother Scott Kelly, another retired astronaut, slammed Musk, an adviser for President Donald Trump and chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, over his attacks on Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen.
Musk labeled Mogensen, a former International Space Station commander, an "idiot" after he pushed back on the SpaceX owner's claims that the Biden administration left astronauts in space for political reasons.
"Hey @ElonMusk, when you finally get the nerve to climb into a rocket ship, come talk to the three of us," Sen. Kelly responded on X to Musk's comments.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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