Trump Just Threatened Either Dem Congressmen or U.S. Troops with Death, I Can’t Quite Tell

By Jim Vorel  |  November 20, 2025 | 4:38pm
Photo by The White House
Congress Donald Trump
Trump Just Threatened Either Dem Congressmen or U.S. Troops with Death, I Can’t Quite Tell

In a classical show of Democratic Party token “resistance,” a handful of Dem members of the Congress in both the House and Senate–all veterans of the military or U.S. intelligence agencies–released a video yesterday urging U.S. service members, intelligence professionals and military officers to “refuse illegal orders,” while naturally stopping short of actually describing what scenarios they were specifically referring to, or how typical service members might actually go about doing this. The six Democratic Congressmen–Sens. Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Mark Kelly (AZ) and Reps Maggie Goodlander (NH), Jason Crow (CO), Chrissy Houlahan (PA) and Chris Deluzio (PA) merely offered some basic platitudes, saying that “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” and pleaded with troops to acknowledge that “threats to our Constitution” were coming “from right here at home,” reminding them that it is their duty to “refuse illegal orders.” How was Donald Trump, the Commander in Chief, to respond? By calling for their deaths–or the deaths of disobeying troops?–of course. In a trademark Truth Social rage, Trump lashed out at the Democratic members of Congress, calling their words “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS.” He then immediately followed up with the reminded that “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

I know it’s easy to get inured and numb to the various unthinkable offenses that Trump subjects us to as U.S. citizens on a daily basis, but it should always cause you to sit up in your chair when the President of the United States announces directly to his followers that not only are his political opponents traitors, but that they should die. Imagine how unthinkable this kind of tone or rhetoric would have been for literally any other President–or any other elected official–to utter at any time previous to Trump’s administration. But then again, we’re talking about Donald Trump, a man “truthing” from his very own social media platform as he blatantly enriches himself through the office of the Presidency. All bets are off, and the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief can publicly claim that reminding service members that they are lawfully required to act in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice is in fact speech that is “punishable by death.”

This is the Democratic “behavior” that Trump says is punishable by death, just in case you haven’t seen it yet.

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) Nov 20, 2025 at 10:39 AM

Interviewed on Fox News on Wednesday, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow said that the aim of the video was that the participants were “standing by our troops, our service members who are often put in very difficult positions and Donald Trump has put them in very difficult positions and has alluded to putting them in even more difficult positions in the months and years ahead, so we are reminding folks about what the uniform code of military justice says, what the Constitution says, what the law of war says.” He made reference to Trump’s questions during his first term on the legality of service members shooting protesters, and the more recent surge of National Guard units into various (primarily blue) U.S. cities as part of a manufactured immigration enforcement crisis. “Donald Trump has made a series of very disturbing comments and suggestions that would violate U.S. law and put our military in a terrible position,” Crow said. “I don’t want to wait until that happens to remind our troops of this obligation because then it will be too late.”

GOP members of Congress, meanwhile, instantly lined up to bemoan how horrible it was for Democratic lawmakers to remind troops that they must follow the letter of the law. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN) also hopped onto Fox News to say that “It is inconceivable that you would have elected officials that are saying to uniformed members of the military who have taken an oath that they would defy the orders that they have been given to execute their mission.”

Somehow, we’re not surprised that Marsha has chosen to ignore the fact that in this scenario, the “mission” those troops would be executed and the orders they would be defying would be illegal orders to harm American citizens. You know, the sort of orders that a crazed President shouting all-caps death threats on social media might give?

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rightly pointed out the extreme danger of Trump’s rhetoric in a statement released Thursday, saying that “We have been in contact with the House Sergeant at Arms and the United States Capitol Police to ensure the safety of these Members and their families. Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed.” But even if Trump were to do so, it’s not as if the threat magically disappears. Once the President starts calling for the deaths of either disobeying troops or duly elected members of Congress, one can only assume that violence won’t be far behind.

 
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