Who was the target audience? It wasn’t generals and admirals. They are well educated in this regard and overall. Most officers are well educated in this matter and nearly all are college educated. I would say the same of senior enlisted.
That leaves junior enlisted. This was likely the targeted audience.
Consider this; the Commander in Chief issues an unlawful order, what should the senator’s action be? Call for an emergency session of congress? Seek redress in federal court? Or encourage junior enlisted to mutiny?
The last one is clearly inane. Outside a true illegal order, discontent is his only hope.
He was a ranking officer in the Navy. He knows the President isn’t doing anything illegal. It wasn’t illegal to fight undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam, you can add Afghanistan and Iraq to that. It wasn’t illegal for our incursions into Pakistan. It wasn’t illegal for Clinton to lob missiles into Serbia. It seemingly was illegal to kill an American in a foreign country. It wasn’t illegal to invade Grenada, nor to invade Panama and forcibly remove its leader (a situation very close to the one that exists in Venezuela.). I could go on.
Bottom line, we have, for the past 75 years vested more and more authority in the executive branch and now dems are shocked by its breadth of authority.
They are trying to set the narrative thru the MSM for when trump starts rounding up the seditionist, traitors & other internal enemies of the state to try to accuse trump of issuing illegal orders