Mike Johnson Dodges When Pressed on Trump’s Call to Execute Congressional Democrats
(Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) dodged when asked Thursday to respond to President Donald Trump accusing some Democratic lawmakers of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR” that’s “punishable by DEATH!”
Trump raged on Truth Social against a video made by six Democratic lawmakers in which they tell members of the military and intelligence communities that they have an “obligation to follow only lawful orders,” not “illegal” ones that may come from the current White House.
CNN’s Manu Raju caught up with Johnson in the halls of Congress to ask about the president’s stunning comments, but Johnson refused to say outright what he thought about Trump’s demands that “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.”
“Look, I know the DOJ and Pentagon are looking into the legality of all that. But what I can address is what everybody knows: that was wildly inappropriate, it’s very dangerous,” Johnson said of the video posted to X by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Representatives Jason Crow (D-CO), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA).
Johnson continued, “You have leading members of Congress telling troops to disobey orders. I think that’s unprecedented in American history. As the father of a young man who is at the Naval Academy, who’s going to be joining the service — I know young soldiers, airmen, sailors — they don’t need that kind of nonsense from people in Congress. It is very dangerous.”
“Punishable by death?” Raju asked again.
“I’m going to let others define what it is, but it’s wildly inappropriate,” Johnson said before walking away.
Also Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked, “Just to be clear, does the president of the United States want to execute members of Congress?”
“No,” Leavitt said before accusing the lawmakers of abusing their positions.
“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. “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.”
