Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) on Sunday condemned President Donald Trump for suggesting her statements urging U.S. military members to disobey “illegal” orders marked “seditious behavior, punishable by death.”
Trump is seeking to exercise “a tool of fear” through his remarks, the Michigan lawmaker said during an ABC News interview.
“He’s trying to get us to shut up because he doesn’t want to be talking about this,” Slotkin said. “In fact, I would argue that one of the things that he’s been doing by repeating it and talking about it is trying to distract us from the big stories of last week, which were the [Jeffrey] Epstein files and then the economy.”
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Slotkin was one of six Democrats last Tuesday who put out a video repeatedly urging military and intelligence personnel to “refuse” unspecified “illegal orders.” The move sparked backlash from the White House, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying the lawmakers were “suggesting that the president has given illegal orders, which he has not.”
“Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander in chief and through this command chain of command, through the Secretary of War, is lawful, and the courts have proven that this administration has an unparalleled record at the Supreme Court, because we are following the laws. We don’t defy court orders, we do things by the books, and to suggest and encourage that active duty service members defy the chain of command is a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do, and they should be held accountable, and that’s what the President wants to see,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday.
When pressed on Sunday on whether she believed the president had issued any illegal orders, Slotkin answered in the negative.
“To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal, but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela.”
Trump initially suggested Slotkin, along with Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) had engaged in “seditious” behavior punishable by death for calling on military members to disobey “illegal” orders. The president toned down his rhetoric over the weekend, saying they should receive jail time.
Slotkin said his comments changed the “security situation” for all members involved.
“Leadership climate is set at the top. So if the president saying things like that, you can imagine people on the ground, what they’re doing, the calls into our office, etc, etc, into our teams, the calling of police. You know, I think I’ve been through dangerous situations before, so it doesn’t change, you know, my feeling about speaking my mind, but obviously, the President took issue with one sentence in a video and was calling for our death. I think that’s inappropriate, whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent,” she said.
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The White House pointed the finger at the Democratic lawmakers for making the video in the first place, arguing that “if this were Republican members of Congress who were encouraging members of the military and members of our United States government to defy orders from the president and from the chain of command,” people would “be up in arms.”
“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,” Leavitt said. “These members knew what they were doing. They were leaning into their credentials as former members of our military, as veterans, as former members of the national security apparatus, to signal to people serving under this commander in chief, Donald Trump, that you can defy him and you can betray your oath of office.”
