Transcript: Trump’s Tirade Calling for “Death” to Dems Backfires Badly
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the November 21 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
On Thursday, November 20th, 2025, the president called for the execution of a number of members of the opposition party. In response to a video in which a number of Democratic lawmakers reminded members of the military of their oath to the Constitution, Donald Trump raged that this was sedition punishable by death. Democratic leaders responded to this forcefully, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spun madly in response. Then a funny thing happened.
The media took notice and started flocking to Dem lawmakers to get them to talk more about Trump’s violent lawlessness. It’s forcing a public conversation about whether Trump is in fact giving illegal orders. Today we’re talking to Representative Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, one of the members of Congress who joined the video that triggered Trump’s call for executions. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us today.
Representative Chrissy Houlahan: Thank you for having me.
Sargent: So I just want to start by playing some of the video that you recorded along with a number of other lawmakers. Listen to this.
Recorded Video (voiceover): We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military. But that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.
Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you’re serving in the CIA, the Army, our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now more than ever, the American people need you.
We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans.
Sargent: So the others quoted there included representatives Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Jason Crow, as well as Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly. Congresswoman, it sounds to me like all of you who have military or intelligence experience are hearing from inside these institutions that there’s real and actual concern, live concern, that people are being asked to carry out illegal orders. Is that what’s going on?
Houlahan: It’s partially what’s going on. It’s also sort of the buildup of the last nine or ten months, where we have watched this president kind of push on every boundary, try to break every circuit, so to speak, and overload us all with attempts to figure out where the lines are in the law. And so it’s not just in the military realm—though of course that’s what this particular podcast or broadcast is about—but it is abundantly evident with more than 149 instances over the last months of the president putting out orders of one form or another that have then been pushed to the courts in some way, shape, or form.
And so it’s not unreasonable to expect that this president that is playing loose with the law will continue to play loose with it with those people who are serving in the military or in the intelligence community. We wanted to make sure that those people got a message from us, who have been in their shoes before, that they need to make sure they remember they’ve taken the oath to the Constitution, not to the man. They’ve taken an oath to the Constitution and not to a party, and that they are obligated by law to follow the law and to follow lawful orders—but also obligated by law to deny unlawful orders. And that’s what we were asking of people.
Sargent: It seems like something
prompted this as well, though, can you describe what you all are hearing from inside? I’ve got to think that there’s actual concern in these institutions that illegal orders are being doled out, is that right?
Houlahan: So I will say in my specific instance that I have had a few conversations with people who have indicated discomfort with sort of the current state of affairs. I know my colleagues have had similar kinds of conversations. But what I would say is this is, as I mentioned, kind of not a specific event but rather a culmination of all of these kinds of things that have resulted in us feeling like we really needed to make sure that we told people that people like us sit in places like this with backgrounds like theirs, and we want to make sure that they remember and understand that we’re here for them. And that they need to remember and understand that they need to uphold the Constitution in their jobs.
Sargent: Well, let’s bring in Trump. In response to all this, he unleashed some very angry tweets. One said, “it’s called seditious behavior at the highest level. Each one of these traders to our country should be arrested and put on trial.” Another quote said, “seditious behavior punishable by death.” Congresswoman, I wanted to give you a chance to respond to all that.
Houlahan: So when this first came to my attention this morning, I was incredulous. I couldn’t believe that our president—any president—would incite violence in this way, political violence against his opposition, for lack of a better way of thinking about it. Death specifically. And calling people of service, duly elected members of Congress, treasonous and seditious, and calling for our death— that was just astounding.
And then later in the day, as I’ve thought about it, it’s just been heartbreaking. We have the purported leader of the free world calling for the death of members of Congress. And we should all be deeply saddened by that, and outraged by that, regardless of who we are—Americans, Democrats, Republicans, and anybody who loves freedom.
And that’s kind of where I am in my journey of trying to understand how the president of the United States called for the murder of members of Congress.
Sargent: He did do that. I think it’s important to stress as well this larger context. NBC News just reported that a senior military lawyer feared that Trump’s boat bombings in the Caribbean Sea are illegal, but he was sidelined. The head of Southern Command overseeing those strikes resigned recently and with no public explanation.
He may well have feared these bombings were illegal. Congress needs to hear from him. Doesn’t appear that Congress is going to. Meanwhile, Trump’s orders to the military in cities are highly contested legally. We just had a court ruling against him on that. Congresswoman, what were you guys referring to specifically on that video when you said that people aren’t obliged to carry out illegal orders?
Houlahan: You just named and made my argument for me, and it was capped off with the cherry of the president of the United States threatening the death of sitting members of Congress. Talk about unlawful and mind-blowing. This is exactly why we made this video. And you also brought up a very good point as well: in this atmosphere, in this environment, the Congress is absent. We are distracted, shut down—whatever version of dysfunction you can come up with.
And the leader, the Speaker of the House, has disallowed us from participating in our constitutional obligations. So if I wanted to call any number of those people in front of the Congress, ask them those questions of why did they think that and what are they worried about, I couldn’t do that, because the Speaker of the House is not permitting us to do that— to do our constitutional duties of oversight or to legislate in the places where we feel as though the president is overstepping his bounds.
And so I am at the place where this is my way of communicating, and this is my way of oversight. And you’ve given me all of the arguments that I need, in addition to the death threat from the president.
Sargent: On that score, you seem to suggest that the death threat itself could be legally questionable. Can you talk about that? Is it incitement? What do you think it is?
Houlahan: Well, I’m going to be honest. We called the Capitol Police and filed a threat against me from the President of the United States. You just read what he said about me and five other members of Congress. If that’s not a threat to violence, I don’t know what is.
And even if he, for whatever reason, didn’t mean it or doesn’t act on it, he’s just unleashed a lot of people, who are not necessarily well, on people like me and my team and my family. And that is also a crime. And so, yeah, I think that we are in a really weird place where I have to have this conversation with you—that the president, our president, my president—has done something like this.
Sargent: Just to be clear, you said that when you went to the Capitol police—I know that the Democratic leadership alluded to alerting the Capitol police—but it sounds like there was a more formal step there. You actually filed a threat complaint against the president?
Houlahan: Yes, our office did.
Sargent: Can you talk about what that entails and what it is?
Houlahan: It’s not dissimilar to what we do, unfortunately, more regularly than I would like. There’s a threat line—you can email on it. You have to identify who it is, if you know, and what they said, if you have it. And then they put it into the line, the pile of threats that we as a group tend to get way too regularly.
And so we did that. And I think some of the other offices may have followed that lead, because I don’t know how else to describe that other than a threat to my safety.
Sargent: I think it’s clearly a threat. And so you filled out a form which essentially says, ‘who delivered this threat,’ and your office wrote in ‘Donald J. Trump.’
Houlahan: ‘The president.’
Sargent: I see. Okay. Well, that’s pretty extraordinary. I mean, talk about something that really illustrates the depths to which we’ve sunk here. On that score, I want to play some audio of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Listen to this.
Karoline Leavitt (voiceover): They are literally saying to 1.3 million active duty service members not… to defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders.
Reporter (voiceover): Actually to refuse illegal orders.
Karoline Leavitt (voiceover): But they’re suggesting, Nancy, that the president has given illegal orders, which he has not.
Sargent: Congresswoman it seems like this shows that you guys are forcing a public debate over whether Trump is giving illegal orders or not. There you saw Karoline Leavitt forced to deny that he’s giving illegal orders. We’re debating it in public: Is he or not? And that seems valuable. What do you think of that?
Houlahan: Well, it is valuable that we’re having this conversation. And like I said, that is part of my responsibility—that sort of oversight of the executive branch. And I’m glad that there’s a conversation.
What’s not valuable is the fact that she’s being deceptive. She’s lying. If you heard that video, she said that we called for people to follow lawful orders or to deny following lawful orders, which is exactly—literally—the polar opposite of what we said. And that’s where problems happen all the time in this administration. Narratives are twisted, lies are told, people believe them because they haven’t had the chance to see what was really said, and we are further and further pulled apart from one another.
And so I think it is an important conversation to have about what is lawful and not lawful. I think it is good that we’re having this conversation, but I’m gravely disappointed with her and with the president for how they’ve escalated this into just nonsense and falsehoods.
Sargent: Well, it seems to me that it could be beneficial to the rule of law as well for military and intelligence officials to know that members of Congress such as yourself are prepared to support them if they do fear they’re being given illegal orders. It could also alert more people inside these institutions and get them to pay closer attention to whether Trump is in fact issuing them illegal commands.
Do you intend to do more of this? Do all of you intend to do more of this? Do other Democrats? What will that look like?
Houlahan: Well, we certainly have started a conversation that hopefully will continue because it’s important and because it’s my job. But I also hope that—my understanding is that folks who are serving right now, when asked about this prior to this incident, not every person, not every member, was able to articulate necessarily what their duty was. About 80 percent were. And that’s good, but we need it to be a hundred percent. We need people to be comfortable with what it is that they’re responsible for and what they’re responsible to, which is the Constitution and not to the president of the United States.
And so I do also hope that this has created conversation in the rank-and-file, so to speak, and in the upper levels of the ranks too, about what our obligations are when we take that oath of office to the Constitution.
Sargent: Well, Democratic leaders in the House put out a strong statement as well. I want to read from it: “We have been in contact with the House Sergeant at Arms and the United States Capitol Police to ensure the safety of these members and their families. Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed.”
We talked a little about this before, but additionally, what makes it strong is Democrats are kind of treating Donald Trump as a violent criminal, and casting him as the primary threat to the constitutional order, which is undeniably true. Would you like to hear more Democrats doing this more often, maybe in more settings than just statements—maybe really push this forward more?
Houlahan: Opposite. I want to hear Republicans. I want to hear everybody acknowledge that this is unacceptable. This is mind blowing. And the fact that it’s
four o’clock in the afternoon now, and this happened earlier in the day, and I think only one Republican that I am aware of has said anything that resembles decrying the president’s behavior or language, just speaks volumes for the fear that he must instill in them or for the lack of understanding that people have of what it is that we actually said. And I’m just disappointed. Listen, you know, when Charlie Kirk was murdered,
I voted to say that that was unacceptable because it’s unacceptable. Where are my Republican colleagues now? And that’s really offensive and scary.
Sargent: We won’t hear a word from them, not a peep. Additionally, calling for execution of members of the opposition should be an impeachable offense, no? Should some Democrats maybe draw up impeachment articles and then force the debate forward into whether what Trump did was impeachable? Make Republicans defend it?
Houlahan: I’ve definitely seen chatter about that. That certainly was not the intent here of this group. This group’s intent was simply to state what should be the obvious, which is the law is the law and it should be followed. You should, as a member of the military or the intelligence community, when you take that oath, remember that you are obliged to follow federal law, international law, Uniform Code of Military Justice, the law of war, all those things. That’s your job. And it was never the intent to blow this into an impeachment of a president.
Sargent: Right. Just to be clear, what I’m saying is, now that Trump has responded by issuing death threats, should that be? I mean, if that’s not an impeachable offense, what is it seems like calling for the execution of members of the opposition is impeachable.
Houlahan: I’m just an engineer and just a member of Congress. It feels like you’re not wrong. But it also feels like, wow, this is what we’re having a conversation about. Wouldn’t it have been lovely if their president had said, you know what, what they said is correct, because it is. Because it’s legal.
And instead we’re here having this really sad conversation.
Sargent: Well, clearly he could have taken an off ramp here and he did quite the opposite. I wonder another tact that could be taken is for Democrats to be essentially saying that the people who carry out illegal orders could actually be vulnerable themselves legally later. I wonder if there’s a way for Democrats to make that clear. Maybe broadcast that.
Houlahan: You want to make sure that instead of kind of being looming and threatening about this, that you’re being educational about the experiences of people who serve us. Only about 1 percent of our population ever takes these oaths that we’re talking about, and they, by definition, are enormously patriotic and very committed to the country. And so we should assume the best of them. And we should also make sure that they have consistent information and consistent reminders about their obligations.
In the same way that every two years I take that oath when I get reelected, and every time you get promoted in the military, you take the oath again, it’s something to remind you of what it is that you are committed to. And I think that we need to make sure that we are telling people out there who are listening—and I have the chance to talk to some of them one-on-one when I travel—but more broadly by social media: we are here, we have lived in your shoes, and we understand your experiences, and we want to make sure that we have another 250 years of amazing growth and development for this great nation.
Sargent: Well, that is certainly what’s at stake. Just to be clear, I’m sensitive to what you’re saying there—that you have to not be threatening and you have to be a supportive figure. There might be a way to say: Folks, trusting Trump to stick to the law, trusting Trump to protect you later legally…maybe that’s a bad idea. Maybe you shouldn’t put yourselves in such jeopardy for Trump’s sake.
Houlahan: Yeah, and of course this is, you know, from the commander-in-chief that we’re, of course, having this conversation about, but we’re talking about every—you know, no ensign is having a conversation with the president. And I actually also want to clarify that this message was not just delivered to the rank and file; it was delivered to everyone. As you mentioned [an Admiral] stepped down from [Southern Command] and we don’t really know why. That would be nice to understand and to know. As you mentioned, there was a court case that recently came back unfavorably for the president about some of his actions. And as you mentioned, there was a lawyer, a JAG, who felt as though some of the actions of the administration were not lawful. And people need to have the ability and the permission to ask those questions without being summarily fired—or even worse, told that they’re going to be hung, which is what the president told me today.
Sargent: Yes, he did. So I suppose if Democrats take back the House in the elections next year, someone like that JAG lawyer or someone like the head of Southern Command,
people like that will have a hospitable place to come testify with the Democratic House. Is that correct? Can you talk about what that might look like?
Houlahan: Presumably. And that’s why elections matter and that’s why balanced government and majorities matter. And that’s why it’s important that the executive branch and the legislative and judiciary branch are co-equal parts of the government. And unfortunately, that’s why we’re in this really weird place where that’s not happening right now, where our speaker is not leading in that way—has, in my opinion, abdicated our authority to ask those kinds of hard questions. And so, yes, in a world where the Democrats end up in the majority in less than a year, I would assume that those would be the kinds of conversations that we would hopefully have in public where we wouldn’t have to have a conversation through social media, but rather would be able to do it in a more dignified way. This is another thing that I’d like to see restored is the civility and decency of the body itself.
Sargent: Just to stay on that theme a little bit longer to wrap this up, the head of Southern Command was overseeing the bombings in the Caribbean Sea and he resigned without warning, without explanation—no public explanation either from him or from the Pentagon. We had Representative Adam Smith on this show and he told us that he tried to get Republicans to bring him in to testify and the Pentagon said he couldn’t come in and Republicans didn’t push for that. It’s extraordinary to me. Doesn’t Congress have to hear from that JAG lawyer from this head of Southern Command, Alvin Holsey? Shouldn’t Congress hear from these people?
Houlahan: Yes. Unfortunately, that’s not where we are. We have, as I mentioned from the top, from the president down to who is purportedly the Speaker of the House but is not behaving as such, to the committee chairs and the subcommittee chairs—they have the ability to ask for those folks to come and, in many cases, the ability to demand that they come. But if they don’t, then we don’t get to talk to them. And so sometimes you’ll see what’s called shadow hearings or spotlight hearings, where we’ll try to have those conversations on the side with the minority trying to lead that. In this particular environment, the military in particular—understandably, because they’ve taken this oath to the Constitution, not to a president, not to a party—feel uncomfortable, understandably, if they’re in a situation where they’re with just one side of the aisle. And so they won’t come unless it’s bipartisan. And so we are boxed out from having those conversations in times like this, where the House, the Senate, and the White House are held by one party.
Sargent: Well, as you said, that’s an argument for a Democratic House. Elections do have consequences. Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on with us today. That was really, really terrific.
Houlahan: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
