The language that Donald Trump used to describe six Democratic members of Congress as seditionists because they urged members of the military and the intelligence community to put the Constitution first and not obey illegal orders should never be normalized or accepted.
Speaker Mike Johnson initially said, “For a senator like Mark Kelly or any member of the House or Senate to behave in that kind of talk is to me so just beyond the pale.”
As the backlash got worse throughout the day, Johnson said Trump’s words were not the ones that he would use and suggested that Trump likes to use heated rhetoric.
None of what Johnson said condemned Trump.
Republicans have been trying to suggest that the comments of the six Democrats were somehow inflammatory because the Democrats had the nerve to remind members of the military that they work for the American people, not Donald Trump.
Mike Johnson self-identifies as a Christian, so it was telling that when Hakeem Jeffries spoke to reporters on Thursday, he brought one trait that most Christians are taught to embody.
Jeffries said to reporters:
It is extraordinary to me. We had patriotic members of the House and the Senate have their lives threatened by Donald Trump in the most unhinged, unacceptable, unconscionable, and un-American way, disgusting and dangerous what Donald Trump has said in accusing patriotic members of Congress and the Senate who served this country well of treason and suggesting they should be killed.
Story continues below.
