Republican fact-checked to his face after repeatedly misquoting 'unlawful orders' video

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) complained about a video featuring former military members and intelligence staff reminding service members they do not have to carry out illegal orders.

The video urged service members not to "give up the ship," explaining that their oath is to the U.S. Constitution and the law and not to President Donald Trump or other commanders under him.

Zinke argued that the Uniform Code of Military Justice instructs members to follow their command. As the Washington Post explains, the UCMJ doesn't define "manifest unlawfulness." It says only that service members must follow “any lawful general order or regulation,” or they could be “punished as a court-martial may direct.”

The Court Martial Manual reads the command to follow orders "does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime."

Over and over, Zinke falsely claimed that the video was telling the military not to follow "lawful orders," prompting CNN's Pamela Brown to fact-check him, noting that they said "unlawful orders."

At one point, Zinke even claimed that the ad called Trump "unconstitutional." She asked the control room to play the full video, revealing that it was never said.

"When you look at it, what they're doing is they're advocating troops, not [obeying] orders for the president," Zinke claimed.

"Unlawful. Unlawful orders," Brown cut in.

"Unlawful orders," agreed Zinke. "But they also said this president is unconstitutional. Show me where the president is unconstitutional. Show me where the execution of a lawful order is unconstitutional. That's the definition of sedition. Now, both sides, and this is a larger view we need as Americans, to stop, is that we need to get the anger out of the equation."

He called the "anger" a distraction, but dodged questions about whether it was appropriate for the president to claim Democrats were committing treason or sedition and that the punishment was "death."

Trump then spent Thursday re-posting comments from his followers saying, "hang them" and alleging the Democrats in the video were "traitors" and "domestic terrorists."

Zinke tried to "both sides" the argument.

"When both sides [are] now coming out of a government shutdown and then going into this — look, everyone needs to relax," he claimed.

"Should they be making videos, you know, advocating that our troops don't follow lawful orders?" Zinke asked.

Brown cut in again, correcting, "unlawful orders."

She also noted it wasn't a "typical back and forth," where Democrats and Republicans disagree on policy or debate something Trump said. Instead, it was a case in which Democrats made a video reminding people not to break the law, and Trump called it "sedition" and said it was "punishable by death."

Zinke repeated that the UCMJ says "it is punishable by death, sedition. But if you, if you're advocating for troops to disobey lawful orders, that's the definition of sedition."

Again, Brown cut in to correct him. "But they didn't do that. It was unlawful orders."