Despite outcry over earlier attack, Trump doubles down and calls for rivals who issued message to military to be jailed.
United States President Donald Trump has doubled down on criticism of Democratic lawmakers who had called on members of the military to refuse illegal orders, labelling the lawmakers as “traitors”.
Trump suggested late on Saturday that Democratic lawmakers who released the video message to service members earlier this week should be jailed.
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“THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK,” he wrote in a social media post.
“IT WASN’T, AND NEVER WILL BE! IT WAS SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, AND SEDITION IS A MAJOR CRIME. THERE CAN BE NO OTHER INTERPRETATION OF WHAT THEY SAID!”
The latest post came after Trump caused a firestorm on Thursday when he appeared to call for the death penalty for the Democrats in the video.
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump wrote.
The 90-second video was first posted on Tuesday by Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA officer. It featured several Democratic legislators who served in the military and intelligence community.
In the video, the lawmakers say the Trump administration “is pitting our uniformed military against American citizens” and call on service members to “stand up for our laws”.
“Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders,” they say.
The Democratic legislators did not specify which illegal orders members of the military should refuse. But their message coincided with Trump’s effort to deploy federal forces to several Democratic-led US cities.
Trump’s invoking of the death penalty prompted condemnation from Democrats, with critics accusing the president of calling for killing the lawmakers.
“There’s no other way to explain it than to say that emphatically the president has put our lives in danger,” Chrissy Houlahan, one of the Democrats who appeared in the video, told CNN on Thursday.
“He directly, literally said that we were seditious and traitors and literally said that we should be hung. So there’s no other way to interpret that other than a call for our death.”
The controversy came as the US continues to reel from political violence after the assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk in September and the killing of Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman in June.
Despite the outcry over his earlier comments about the death penalty, Trump appeared undeterred by the criticism.
“MANY GREAT LEGAL SCHOLARS AGREE THAT THE DEMOCRAT TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS, AS PRESIDENT, HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME OF SERIOUS PROPORTION,” he wrote on Saturday.
The president serves as the commander-in-chief of the US military, and the law requires officers to follow the orders of their superiors.
But some legal scholars have highlighted that the service members swear an oath to the Constitution, and that the Uniform Code of Military Justice – which applies to all active duty officers – only details penalties for members who disobey “lawful orders”.
Moreover, the laws of war do not offer legal protection for soldiers who follow illegal orders.
The International Committee of the Red Cross database of international humanitarian law says “manifestly unlawful” orders “must be disobeyed”.
