During Thursday's press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt purposely misquoted Democratic lawmakers, claiming they were telling US service members to disregard all of Trump's commands.
Six Democratic lawmakers made a 90 second video encouraging U.S. service members and members of the intelligence community to refrain from following illegal orders. There's nothing controversial about that.
Remember, the Supreme Court shielded only Trump's criminality while in office, but not the rest of the country or the military.
Trump's response to this video was to call them traitors (That's something he's very familiar with) and calling for them them to be executed.
When asked about Piggy Trump's retort, Leavitt lied.
Q: 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: No.
In Trump's TS post, Piggy unequivocally wanted them to be hanged
So, I beg to differ, Karoline. Trump would celebrate their executions and sell tickets to his pay-per-view event " The Trump Coliseum Hanging Party."
Leavitt then continued to gaslight....
LEAVITT: I want to 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.
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.
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's what these members of Congress who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution are essentially encouraging. We have 1.3 active duty service members in this 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.
That is not what the Democrats said in the video.
Conover Kennard commented on this earlier, "Not only are military members not required to follow illegal orders, but they have a duty to refuse them. Trump will hate this part, but their oath is to the Constitution, not to any individual. Following an illegal order can lead to criminal liability, and the defense that the order was given by a superior is not a valid excuse. "I was just following orders" didn't work out during the Nuremberg trials.If the Constitution offends the Commander in Chief, then he needs to step down. To claim that the Democrats pointing out illegal orders shouldn't be followed is "punishable by DEATH!" only highlights Trump's mental instability."
In fact, many orders Trump has given are immoral and in some cases criminal. Our service members have a duty to obey the US Constitution, not blindly follow Trump when he asks for the unforgivable.
CNN's Kaitlin Collins responded in kind.
