Airman Arrested at Capitol for Calling for Trump to Be Impeached Detained Again After CNN Interview

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. Air Force Major Jason Watson, who was arrested in July after standing on the Capitol steps and calling for President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to be impeached, has been detained again, following an interview with CNN in which he criticized the commander-in-chief again.

Watson, an active member of the Air Force, spoke at the U.S. Capitol on July 1 and lambasted Trump for “having order[ed] military action against foreign countries absent an emergency scenario where American interests are under imminent dire threat, as was done with Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran,” which he called “an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s authority and a violation of the War Powers Clause.”

“These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members and injuries of hundreds more. For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed,” Watson added.

He further denounced the role billionaire Elon Musk’s role with DOGE, accusing Trump of having “grant[ed] an unelected mega donor sweeping authority” who “shut down large swaths of our federal government,” “expose[d] every American’s personal sensitive data to leaks and exploitation, illegally terminated tens of thousands of federal civil servants,” and “by far most tragically resulted in the address deaths of hundreds of thousands of the world’s most impoverished people within humanely abrupt cessation of USAID.”

The Trump administration’s immigration policies were another target, with Watson accusing them of sponsoring “violence on the American people, engaged in their constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest” and having directed the Department of Homeland Security “to deny hundreds of people any due process before illegally detaining them and sending them to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses.”

At that time, the U.S. Capitol Police told CNN that members of the public are prohibited from demonstrating on the Capitol steps without being accompanied by a member of Congress, and while Watson had been “escorted” there by a member, that member then “left the area.”

On Monday, Watson was interviewed by Erin Burnett on OutFront and again accused the president of “flagrantly violating the Constitution” and urged Congress to impeach him.

“What is happening with President Trump is not normal. He has failed us,” he added. “And not only is he a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to all of us.”

The next day, Tuesday, August 18, Watson was detained again, CNN reported.

According to an Air Force spokesperson, Watson was “ordered into pretrial confinement” on Tuesday and was being detailed on a military hold at a facility in Maryland.

The Air Force spokesperson released a statement to CNN that said:

Military members are required to comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and all applicable regulations. Based on probable cause to support allegations of continued misconduct, Maj. Watson was ordered into pretrial confinement on Aug. 18, 2026. Maj. Watson is presumed innocent and will be afforded all rights under Rule for Courts-Martial 305 as his pretrial confinement is reviewed.

CNN asked the Air Force for more details about what specific misconduct allegations had been made against Watson, but did not receive a response. “Watson’s attorney Chris Mutimer said he has not spoken to Watson yet but suspects that his appearance on CNN earlier this week played a role in his detention,” the CNN report said.

Active duty members of the U.S. military do not have the same free speech rights as other Americans. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice “criminalizes contemptuous words against the president, vice president, Congress and other top officials,” CNN noted, and other regulations ban wearing military uniforms during political activities.

“We just have to be willing to accept that we can change what is happening in our country if we’re just willing to pay a price for it,” Watson said about his choice to protest in this way. “So all that I could do was ask myself what’s the highest price that I’m willing to pay. And this is what I ultimately came up with.”

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