President Donald Trump on Friday insisted he was not calling for Democrats to face execution after he declared a day earlier that a group of Democratic Party lawmakers had engaged in "seditious behavior, punishable by death" by posting a video urging members of the military to refuse to obey illegal orders.
However, he pointed out in a radio show interview that "in the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death."
And when the show's host, Brian Kilmeade, asked Trump directly whether he had threatened the lawmakers, he responded that he thinks "they're in serious trouble."
"I'm not threatening death, but I think they're in serious trouble," Trump said.
"In the old days, it was death. That was seditious behavior."
The lawmakers involved in the video, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.; Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.; Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H.; Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa.; and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., have not responded to Trump's denials.
However, several have reported a rise in threats after his Truth Social post on Thursday that accused them of sedition.
The lawmakers, many of them military veterans, or in Slotkin's case, a former CIA intelligence officer, used the video to urge members of the military and intelligence community to uphold their oaths in the face of what they called escalating political pressure.
"Our laws are clear," the video said. "You can refuse illegal orders."
"You must refuse illegal orders," added the video. "No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution."
Trump fired back on Truth Social, accusing them of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" and amplifying posts, including one that read, "Hang them George Washington would."
Trump on Friday doubled down on his claim that the lawmakers "broke the law."
"I can say if I ever said that and there were a Democrat as president, all hell would have broken loose. And it has broken loose," he said.
Trump added that he believes Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is "investigating the situation."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday rejected the notion that Trump was calling for executions.
"No," she said when asked about his posts.
Leavitt added, however, that the Democrats' statements were "a very, very dangerous message, and it perhaps is punishable by law."
"I'm not a lawyer," she told reporters. "I'll leave that to the Department of Justice and the Department of War to decide."
Threats against public officials have increased in recent years, including two assassination attempts on Trump during last year's campaign.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday he does not believe Trump is responsible for rising threats.
"I don't think you can put the blame on the president for any of that," he said. "The rhetoric is heated all the way around … I've been calling on people to turn down the rhetoric across the board."
Crow, an Army veteran, told reporters Friday that he has seen an increase in threats since Trump's posts.
His office asked the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate what it called Trump's "intimidating, threatening, and concerning" messages, noting "a significant uptick in calls and emails with violent rhetoric and additional threats."
"When the president of the United States tweets out death threats and says the things that he says, that stirs things up a lot," Crow said. "But again, I'm not going to be incredibly intimidated and certainly not going to change my approach."
Newsmax Wires contributed to this report.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.