President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on December 2. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

In 2016, as then-presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed that US troops would carry out even his most extreme battlefield orders as commander in chief — some of which former military leaders said would be illegal — Pete Hegseth warned that service members had a duty to refuse unlawful orders from a potential President Trump.

“You’re not just gonna follow that order if it’s unlawful,” Hegseth said in a March 2016 appearance on “Fox & Friends,” referring to veterans he spoke with.

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

A Fox News contributor

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