A rattled White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to defend her boss, President Donald Trump, at Thursday’s press briefing during intense questioning about Trump’s calls to execute six Democratic lawmakers over a video message urging U.S. troops to protect the Constitution and refuse illegal military orders. But she ended up fleeing the briefing in indignation instead.
It started about 22 minutes into the press briefing with a question from CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes.
“This morning, President Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR punishable by DEATH.’ Just to be clear, does the president want to execute members of Congress?”
Leavitt insisted Trump was not calling for the execution of the lawmakers.
“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,” she began.
“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 service members, to members of the national security apparatus, encouraging them to defy the President’s lawful orders,” Leavitte stated, working herself up into a lather.
“The sanctity of our military rests on the chain of command and if that chain of command is broken it can lead to people getting killed. It can lead to chaos, and that is what these members of Congress, who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution, are essentially encouraging,” an indignant Leavitt declared.
“We have 1.3 [million] active-duty service members in the country and if they hear this radical message from sitting members of Congress, that could inspire chaos and it could incite violence and it certainly could disrupt the chain of command,” she spat out.
“These three [there were 6] members of Congress knew exactly what they were doing,” Leavitt declared, accusing the lawmakers of “signaling” to troops that they can defy Trump.
“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 the Department of War to decide,” Leavitt railed.
But she wasn’t getting off that easy. As Leavitt tried to move on, Cordes interrupted her with another question.
“The President and the vice president, for that matter, have accused the other side of encouraging political violence. Isn’t that exactly what the president is doing when he says that members of Congress should be killed?” Cordes inquired.
“Why aren’t you talking about what these members of Congress are doing to encourage and incite violence?” Leavitt deflected.
“They are literally saying to 1.3 million active-duty service members to defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders,” she fibbed.
That’s when Cordes tried to correct her. “Actually, they said they can refuse an illegal order.”
Leavitt and Cordes then talked over each other, with Leavitt then claiming that the six Dems were suggesting that Trump has given illegal orders, “which he has not.”
She then claimed that “we are following the laws.”
“We do things by the book,” she indignantly contended. “They should be held accountable, and that’s what the president wants to see.”
Leavitt tried to move on, and she did briefly, but another reporter brought the issue back up again, asking Leavitt whether the president expected Cabinet officials or other administration officials to proceed with orders they think might be illegal.
“The president expects his council and the administration to follow the law and to demand accountability and to hold people accountable for their dangerous rhetoric,” she claimed.
She tried to end it there, but CNN’s Kaitlin Collins held her feet to the fire. “Karoline, you misquoted Democrats in that video. That’s actually not what they said,” but Leavitt ignored her as she fled the room.
Social media erupted, calling Leavitt out for her blatant disregard for what the video actually said.
X user and retired Army guard Dave Thul wrote, “Encouraging members of the military to question unlawful orders is the opposite of inciting violence. It is preventing it.”
“Leavitt is notorious for bending the truth and pushing lies. She’ll never accept accountability,” one person wrote.
“They were very specific and said unlawful orders. If Trump and other republicans are reading more into this then that tells you what their agenda is right there. If Trump had no plans for unlawful orders why did he feel the need to respond so harshly and aggressively?” this X user wondered observantly.
The six Democrats, including Sens. Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and Congress members Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander and Jason Crow, all either former military or former intelligence workers, posted a video on social media urging U.S. troops to refuse to follow illegal orders.
That sent Trump into a social media frenzy Thursday morning.
“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” Trump first wrote, including a link to the story about the Democrats’ video by the right-leaning Washington Examiner.
“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,” he raged.
His next post was even more stunning: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Trump also reposted a series of other outraged posts calling the Congress members “traitors” and “domestic terrorist Democrats.” In another post he wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!!”
And finally, “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT,” an indignant Trump raged.
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