President Donald Trump Thursday repeatedly accused a group of congressional Democrats of sedition for posting a video reminding military personnel they have a duty to refuse illegal orders. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” Trump said on social media. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” All six Democrats in the PSA-style video, first posted by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) on Tuesday, previously served in the military or intelligence services.
Who said what
Trump is “calling for the execution of elected officials,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor. This “deadly serious” threat is like “lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.” Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) called the video “ill advised” but said he did not “agree” that it threatened death. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Trump was merely factually “defining a crime.”
U.S. military personnel — who take an oath to the Constitution, not the president — have a “specific obligation to reject” what they deem “manifestly unlawful orders,” The Associated Press said. But while “commanders have military lawyers on their staffs” to help make that determination, “rank-and-file troops who are tasked with carrying out those orders” do not. They can be court-martialed for disobeying lawful orders or arrested for carrying out illegal ones.
A June survey of 818 active-duty troops found that 80% “understand these rules” and “don’t want to obey unlawful orders,” Charli Carpenter and Geraldine Santoso of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said at The Conversation in August. And being cognizant of those rules can “affect decision-making by military personnel,” they added. “When we explicitly reminded troops that shooting civilians was a violation of international law, their willingness to disobey increased 8 percentage points.”
What next?
The six Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement they found it “telling” that Trump “considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” but they “will not be intimidated” as he “calls for our murder and political violence.” Asked Thursday if Trump wanted to execute members of Congress, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded: “No.”
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
