Six lawmakers repeated a basic UCMJ rule — and Trump called it sedition

Their video repeated a rule every service member already knows.

Nov 21, 2025

Earlier this week, six Democratic lawmakers with military or national-security backgrounds put out a short video that probably would’ve gone nowhere if anyone else had been president. It was Slotkin and Kelly in the Senate, and Crow, Houlahan, Goodlander and Deluzio in the House, all standing in a hallway, talking straight into the camera about something every enlisted kid hears before they even get their boots broken in. They said troops swear an oath to the Constitution, not a person, and that the law only requires them to follow lawful orders. If an order is illegal, you can refuse it. If it’s blatantly illegal, you have to. It was basically a 90-second refresh of the UCMJ. No digs at Trump. No hint about any specific situation. It felt like the kind of civics thing members of Congress sometimes post that gets about eight retweets and is forgotten an hour later.

For most of the day that’s exactly what it was doing — floating around between Hill aides and a few vets who like that kind of content. Then Trump got hold of it. And everything detonated at once. He went online calling the six members traitors, said the video was “seditious behavior” and threw in “punishable by DEATH” like it was punctuation. He reposted a supporter calling for the lawmakers to be hanged. Reuters said he told aides the group should be arrested. Not a word about what the video actually said, just this blast of rage and punishment fantasies.

The next day the White House spent more time trying to sand down Trump’s language than explaining it. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Trump didn’t literally want executions — which is now a thing that has to be clarified out loud — but she backed the idea that the video itself was dangerous. She said it could encourage troops to defy the commander in chief. She hinted it might even be illegal. She didn’t offer a statute, a rule, a subsection or anything else that would make that claim hold water.

Democrats reacted about how you’d expect. Schumer said it was an outright threat. Murphy said Trump’s rhetoric puts people in danger and mentioned he was already thinking about travel security. Deluzio, who was in the video, said they were simply repeating a basic constitutional responsibility. None of them backed down from it.

Legal and national-security experts looked at the clip and basically shrugged — the good kind of shrug. The rule it cites is a real one. Troops are supposed to refuse unlawful orders. It’s not exotic; it’s in their training. Groups like the Steady State pointed that out and left it at that. Nobody in that world seemed confused or alarmed.

The GOP reaction went in a different direction. Mike Johnson said the video was very dangerous and claimed it was unprecedented for lawmakers to address the military this way. Lindsey Graham called it irresponsible. Fox commentators said it looked like a call for rebellion. The New York Post was offended in the loud, theatrical way the Post likes to be offended. A lot of it felt less like legal analysis and more like people trying to match Trump’s tone without quite matching the wording.

Johnson’s “unprecedented” claim doesn’t hold up to history. During the Reagan years, senators like Daniel Inouye and Patrick Leahy said outright during the Iran–Contra hearings that military and intelligence personnel were not required to follow illegal or unauthorized orders. Under George H. W. Bush, Ron Dellums made similar arguments during debates over Panama and the Gulf War, saying troops couldn’t be forced to carry out actions that violated international law or lacked proper authorization.

In the 1990s, the point came up again, though in a different political flavor. Ron Paul, serving in Congress during Clinton’s term, talked constantly about federal officers and service members being bound first to the Constitution, especially when Waco, Ruby Ridge and gun-enforcement controversies were swirling. Sen. Robert Byrd warned in various national-security debates that the military couldn’t be used to satisfy political whims and had to operate within statutory limits. Rep. Major Owens made a version of the same argument in mid-90s oversight hearings when he said no one in uniform could be required to carry out an illegal directive. None of this was packaged as instructions to troops, but the theme was familiar: legality governs what gets obeyed.

Under George W. Bush, the conversation got sharper. As the country fought over torture and detainee treatment, lawmakers like Carl Levin, Dick Durbin and John Conyers said openly that service members couldn’t carry out illegal interrogation or detention orders. The Geneva Conventions and anti-torture laws weren’t optional. And the most forceful voice came from a Republican: John McCain. Between 2005 and 2007, he said over and over that troops aren’t required to obey illegal commands, especially ones involving torture. He treated it as both a legal obligation and a matter of military honor.

Then, during the Obama years, some Republicans began arguing that certain executive actions were unconstitutional and leaned into the idea that service members shouldn’t be forced to comply with orders they believed crossed that line. Ted Cruz made those claims during immigration fights. Trent Franks made them during gun-policy battles. Steve King suggested officers or military personnel could reject directives that exceeded presidential authority. And at conservative events, Allen West went even further, telling audiences that troops must refuse unconstitutional orders. Again: same principle, different context.

So the idea itself — the rule about obeying only lawful orders — isn’t new. It isn’t partisan. It isn’t controversial inside the military. It’s been said in Congress, in hearings, in speeches, in training manuals, and in courtrooms for decades. What made this week unusual wasn’t the message but the way Trump and many in the GOP reacted to it.

And in a week packed with clips and posts and noise, the tiniest part of it all was the part that actually happened — six lawmakers repeating a rule every service member already knows. Everything that followed was political fallout. The outrage said more about the moment than the message, especially the way a basic UCMJ principle suddenly got treated like a subversive plot. In the end, the loudest alarm bells didn’t come from the people talking about illegal orders. They came from the people who heard that reminder and lost their minds over it.

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