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.
