Trump calls 6 Democratic lawmakers traitors and says they deserve the death penalty. The video that angered the US president
US President Donald Trump delivers a speech at the US-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on November 19, 2025. PHOTO: Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP / Profimedia
President Donald Trump on Thursday attacked Democratic lawmakers who have called on members of the US military to refuse any illegal orders, calling them traitors and saying they should be sentenced to death.
Trump retweeted an article about a video released Tuesday by six Democratic lawmakers who served in the military or intelligence community.
“REBELLION BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” the Republican president wrote in a post on his social network, Truth Social.
“This is very serious and dangerous for our country,” Trump wrote in an earlier post. “We cannot allow their words to go unanswered. REBELLION BEHAVIOR BY TRAITORS!!! SHOULD WE LOCK THEM???”, added the White House leader.
The six Democratic lawmakers are Senators Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Iraq War veteran, and Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy veteran, as well as Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan – the latter four being members of the House of Representatives.
Democrats in Congress urged service members to refuse the illegal orders
The six veteran Democrats in the US Congress released a joint video urging US military service members to disobey illegal orders, though they did not specify what they would be.
Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan said “threats to our Constitution” are coming “right here in our country.” They repeatedly urged military and intelligence personnel to “reject illegal orders,” the Washington Examiner previously reported.
None of the Democrats appearing in the video specified what illegal orders should concern the military or members of the Secret Service, or what they should do if they believe they are being given such orders.
💥Sen Elissa Slotkin – former CIA
💥Sen Mark Kelly – former Navy Captain
💥Rep Chris DeLuzio – former Navy
💥Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander – former “intelligence officer”
💥Rep Chrissy Houlahan – former Air Force
💥Congressman Jason Crow – former paratrooper and Army Ranger pic.twitter.com/NzfBKd013F— 🇺🇸 The Truth Warrior (@MagaDianna) November 20, 2025
“We stand with our troops, with our service members, who are often put in very difficult situations, and Donald Trump has put them in very difficult situations and has hinted that he's going to put them in even more difficult situations in the coming months and years, so we're reminding people what the uniform code of military justice says, what the Constitution says, what the law of war says,” Crow said Wednesday afternoon on Fox News.
He cited first-term President Donald Trump's suggestions about the possibility of military service members shooting protesters in the legs, his more recent decisions to send the National Guard to several US cities to crack down on illegal activity and the possibility of sending US troops to polling stations.
“Donald Trump has made a series of very disturbing comments and suggestions that would violate American law and put our military in a terrible position,” added Crow, a former U.S. Army Ranger. “I don't want to wait until that happens to remind our troops of this obligation, because then it will be too late,” the lawmaker added.
Republicans criticized the Democrats' video.
Senator Marsha Blackburn said on Fox News: “It is unconscionable to have elected officials telling sworn members of the military in uniform to disobey orders to carry out their mission.”
Similarly, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth responded to the video in a message posted on social media, stating: “Stage 4 [Sindromul deranjamentului Trump]”.
Crow denied that the video referred to ongoing military operations in the Caribbean. The US military currently has the largest concentration of US forces in the Western Hemisphere in decades. Since early September, the US military has carried out about 20 deadly airstrikes on ships it says were carrying drugs bound for the United States, killing more than 80 people.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel found in July that U.S. troops involved in deadly attacks on suspected drug-trafficking vessels would not face future prosecution.
