"Punishable by death" is how President Donald Trump described a video posted by Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin urging service members to disobey illegal orders.
Trump made the statement on Truth Social while calling for the arrest of six Democratic lawmakers.
That 90-second video was released by six Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Iraq war veteran, and Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy veteran, as well as Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan.
In the video, they directly address members of the U.S. military and intelligence community, saying the Trump administration was pitting those institutions against the American people and threatening tenets of the U.S. Constitution. The lawmakers said they “will not be intimidated.”
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy called the post "perhaps the most reckless, irresponsible thing that he has done all Congress" and warned "it's going to get a lot of us killed." Murphy added "he just told them essentially carry out violence against us" and called it disturbing.
The six Democrats released a joint statement saying they "will not be intimidated."
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he did not believe Trump was calling for violence but was defining a crime and called the Democrats’ video “wildly inappropriate.”