Mike Johnson Dances Around Trump’s Call To Execute Democrats

WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) showed absolutely no interest Thursday in pushing back on President Donald Trump’s call for certain Democrats in Congress to face the death penalty.

Johnson said Trump’s posts on Thursday morning, one of which said “HANG THEM,” were not calls for Democrats to be executed. Instead, the president was merely expounding on a legal question.

“What I read is he was defining the crime of sedition,” Johnson told reporters. “Obviously, attorneys have to parse the language and determine all that.”

Trump’s posts came in response to a video by a group of House and Senate Democrats with military service and national security backgrounds urging members of the military not to follow illegal orders.

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump wrote in one of the messages on his Truth Social website.

Another post by Trump, a “ReTruth” of a message by an anonymous user, did not contain any legal language. It simply said “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

Republicans have blamed Democratic rhetoric, such as their use of the term “fascist” to describe Trump and Republicans, as inciting political violence, including the assassination attempts agains Trump last year. But when a reporter asked Johnson if Trump calling Democrats traitors and suggesting they should get the death penalty amounted to incitement, Johnson said “no.”

Johnson said it was the Democrats who had spoken inappropriately ― even though members of the military can have an obligation to refuse to obey illegal orders. In his remarks, Johnson did not distinguish between legal and illegal orders.

“That was a wildly appropriate thing for so-called leaders in Congress to do, to encourage young troops to disobey orders,” Johnson said. “I mean, think of what a threat that is to our national security and what it means to our institutions. We have got to raise the bar in Congress. This is out of control and is wildly inappropriate.”

Trump’s attacks on Democrats came just days after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she received death threats, and police said a man threatened to kill her son, after Trump repeatedly called her a traitor.

Democratic leaders said they’d been in touch with Capitol police to ensure their members will be safe.

“Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement.