President Donald Trump on Thursday raised alarms and prompted calls to Capitol Police when he suggested that Democrats should face the “death penalty” over “seditious behavior.” When pressed on comments by The Independent, House Speaker Mike Johnson was noncommittal, and deflected criticism on to Democrats.
Earlier this week, several Democratic members of congress — Rep. Chris DeLuzio, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Rep. Jason Crow, Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Sen. Mark Kelly — with backgrounds in the military and intelligence, released a video on social media stating that current military members were allowed to ignore illegal orders from their superiors, and encouraged them to do so.
In a series of posts to Truth Social on Thursday, Trump accused the Democrats of “seditious” conduct over the video and called for them to face trial. He later shared a response to his post which suggested the lawmakers should face the death penalty.
“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” Trump’s post read, with another calling the video, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
“HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” an anonymous account said in reply, which was later shared by the president.
When pressed for a response to the comments by the president, Speaker Johnson quickly changed the subject to the video from his Democratic colleagues without condemning Trump.
“What I read was he was defining the crime of sedition,” Johnson told The Independent. “But obviously attorneys have to parse the language and determine all that. What I'm saying, what I will say unequivocally, that was a wildly inappropriate thing for so called leaders in Congress to do to encourage young troops to disobey orders… This is out of control and is wildly inappropriate,” Johnson said. “And for a senator like Mark Kelly, or any member of Congress in the House or Senate to be engaged in that kind of talk is is, to me, just so beyond the pale.”