Donald Trump today called for the executions of a group of six congressional Democrats who participated in a video speaking to members of the military and the intelligence community about their right to refuse “illegal orders.”
In other words, it’s Thursday.
“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT,” Trump wrote on social media on Thursday, adding in a later post that the alleged “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR” is “punishable by DEATH!”
We can’t Trumpwash this anymore.
Donald Trump needs to be removed from office; today, if not sooner.
“Donald Trump is now saying Democratic lawmakers who encouraged servicemembers to follow the law should be put to death. When are Republicans going to grow a spine to call this out?” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said, one voice among the chorus to weigh in, in disgust.
Frustrating here: it’s not a bipartisan chorus.
No spines from the other side, not a single one.
We’re not hearing from, for instance, Ben Cline or John McGuire, our two local Republican congressmen; Cline’s latest public pronouncement is him bragging about recognizing a constituent on the occasion of his 100th birthday; McGuire posted thanks to the Virginia Chamber of Commerce for lunch.
They’re worthless.
The President of the United States is signaling to his base his support for the summary executions of Democrats who point out, accurately, that soldiers, sailors and CIA agents “swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution,” and that in so doing, they “can” and “must” refuse “illegal orders” – specifically, per their video, orders “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”
Our two local congressmen: silent.
“We are veterans and national security professionals who love this country and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation,” the targeted Democrats – Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo., Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H. and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. – said in a joint statement of response.
More from that statement:
What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law. Our servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.
But this isn’t about any one of us. This isn’t about politics. This is about who we are as Americans. Every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence. This is a time for moral clarity.
In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage. We will continue to lead and will not be intimidated.
One awesome thing here is, the mainstream news media, which until recently let itself be cowed into pretending that Trump’s dangerous rhetoric is somehow par for the course, made the death threat from the President front and center at Thursday’s White House press briefing.
To wit: Nancy Cordes, the White House correspondent at CBS News, asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt point-blank if Trump “wants to execute members of Congress.”
Leavitt’s response indicates that she is either deaf, or more likely, she thinks we’re dumb.
“Let’s be clear about what the president is responding to, because many in this room want to talk about the President’s response, but not what brought the president to responding in this way. You have sitting members of the United States Congress who conspired together to orchestrate a video message to members of the United States military, to active-duty servicemembers, to members of the national security apparatus, encouraging them to defy the President’s lawful orders,” Leavitt said.
Fact-check: not what the sitting members of Congress said.
What they said: clearly, they referenced “illegal orders.”
Not “lawful orders.”
“I will also add, they knew exactly what they were doing,” Leavitt said, unwittingly doing PR for the Dems, highlighting that Slotkin is a former CIA agent, that Kelly and Goodlander are Navy veterans.
“They were leaning into their credentials as former members of our military, as veterans, as former members of the national security apparatus, to signal to people serving under this commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, that you can defy him, and you can betray your oath of office,” Leavitt said.
Fact-check: again, no, not what they said.
Again, the message was clearly about “illegal orders.”
“That is a very, very dangerous message, and it perhaps is punishable by law. I’m not a lawyer. I’ll leave that to the Department of Justice and Department of Defense to decide,” Leavitt said.
So, the White House, not surprisingly, is doubling down on what the President said – that the group of House and Senate Democrats who are saying what is simply the law of the land, about soldiers, sailors and CIA agents having a sworn duty to refuse to follow illegal orders, should be charged, tried, convicted and executed.
Leavitt, rattled, called an early end to the press briefing, and left the podium to a raft of questions from reporters, and a diss from CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who could be heard above the din telling Leavitt that she had “misquoted Democrats in that video, that’s actually not what they said.”
CNN’s congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, later got House Speaker Mike Johnson on the record on the video, with Johnson calling the direction from the Democrats about the “illegal orders” “nonsense” and “very dangerous.”
“Punishable by death?” Raju asked Johnson, who responded:
“I’m going to let others define what it is, but it’s wildly inappropriate.”
So, for those keeping score, POTUS wants them executed, and the House Speaker seems OK with that.
“I would hope that people of all backgrounds — Democrat, Republicans, independents — would agree that threatening death for people you disagree with is beyond the pale of who we are as Americans,” Slotkin said, in a video that she posted to the interwebs, adding:
I love this country. It has given me everything. Everything. And I refuse to believe that this is the new normal. I refuse to believe that we’re going to use fear and intimidation against people we agree with. And I’m not going to be forced away from speaking up on behalf of my country.
I swore an oath to the Constitution many times, most recently less than a year ago as a senator. To the Constitution, not to any one man, not to any president. And I abide by that oath. For me, I believe in the power of this country, and that we are better than our current politics represent, and I refused to be intimidated out of defending the country that I love.
This one is such a bad look on Trump that it even got Chuck Schumer riled up.
“If we don’t draw a line here, there is no line left to draw,” Schumer said. “Who would have thought the President of the United States saying his opponent should be hanged? It’s outrageous. No president has ever stooped as low as Donald Trump. He has made political violence a feature of his politics. And if we don’t draw a line here, there’s no line left. And yet today he crossed yet another line that no democracy can afford to tolerate. He must be condemned forcefully, loudly, and without excuses before someone takes his words as permission to do the unthinkable.”
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
