As the Trump administration continues to carry out deadly military strikes against civilian boats in international waters, a great many legal experts have argued that the White House policy of extrajudicial killings is plainly illegal. Evidently, the senior military lawyer for the combatant command overseeing the lethal strikes has come to the same conclusion.
NBC News reported that the lawyer, who serves as the senior judge advocate general (or JAG) at U.S. Southern Command in Miami, “raised his legal concerns in August before the strikes began in September,” though his views were ultimately sidelined and overruled.
Acting on those concerns, six Democratic members of Congress, who served in the military, the intelligence community or both, appeared in a video this week to remind current service members that they are obligated to refuse illegal orders. The New York Times reported:
The stark message, posted on Tuesday, was organized by Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst who served multiple tours in Iraq. … ‘Our laws are clear,’ said Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Navy veteran and former astronaut. ‘You can refuse illegal orders.’ ‘You must refuse illegal orders,’ added Representative Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, who also served in the Navy.
In an interview with Times, Slotkin said she’d heard from active-duty troops who were concerned about the legality of the administration’s boat strikes, with some wondering whether they could be held personally liable for the operation’s many deaths.
In theory, the video shouldn’t have been especially controversial. After all, the Democratic veterans are correct: Service members aren’t supposed to follow illegal orders.
In practice, the partisan pushback has been ferocious.
On social media, for example, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote, “Democrat [sic] lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection.” He pushed the same line on Fox News.
The claim is substantively absurd — there’s nothing “insurrectionist” about telling service members to refuse illegal orders — but hours later, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also appeared on Fox News and said the Democratic lawmakers who appeared in the video “should be held to account” for their comments.
And then, of course, there was Donald Trump himself, who predictably took matters in a still more hysterical direction.
On Thursday morning, the president published an item to his social media platform responding to the message from the Democratic veterans, saying, “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”
This dovetailed with a similar message, also posted on Thursday morning, which read, “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. 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.” Soon after, the Republican added, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump similarly amplified an online message written by someone else, who wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” So, to recap: Democratic veterans reminded service members to follow the law and their oath and refuse illegal orders. Trump responded by accusing them of sedition, labeling them “traitors” and suggesting that they’re subject to prosecution — all before raising the possibility of capital punishment. In the recent past, many leading GOP voices warned that rhetoric like this was corrosive to society and heightened the risk of political violence. Evidently, the incumbent president, outraged by calls in support of the rule of law, doesn’t care. UPDATE (November 20, 2025, 1:31 p.m. ET): House Speaker Mike Johnson Trump’s online antics, telling reporters, “What I read was he was defining the crime of sedition … that is a factual statement.” He also called it “wildly inappropriate for so-called leaders in Congress … to encourage young troops to disobey orders … We have got to raise the bar in Congress, this is out of control.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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