ISTANBUL

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in 2016 that US service members would be required to reject any unlawful battlefield orders if then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, attempted to issue them, CNN reported Monday.

In a March 2016 interview on “Fox & Friends,” Hegseth said veterans he had spoken with were “not just gonna follow that order if it’s unlawful.”

“The military’s not gonna follow illegal orders,” Hegseth said of Trump in another appearance on Fox Business the same month.

Hegseth, who was a Fox News contributor at the time, reiterated a month later that the US military would refuse any unlawful orders from a commander in chief.

Hegseth’s 2016 remarks came as Trump faced broad backlash for campaign proposals that military officials warned would break the laws of war, including targeting terrorists’ families and reinstating torture methods previously banned.

Hegseth said at the time that the US could fight aggressively without losing its moral footing, warning that Trump’s rhetoric risked pushing troops to cross that line.

Those earlier warnings now stand in contrast to allegations that, under Hegseth’s leadership, US forces carried out a follow-up strike that legal experts say may have breached the laws of war. The secretary has also recently dismissed Democratic concerns about potentially unlawful orders in strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels.