LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Now we turn to Representative Jason Crow of Colorado. He’s one of the Democratic lawmakers that was in that video message to U.S. service members. He’s also a former paratrooper and Army Ranger. Congressman, good morning and thank you for joining me.
JASON CROW: Good morning.
FADEL: So what was it like to see the president call you and your colleagues traitors who should face execution?
CROW: Well, it wasn’t a great day. I can tell you that. It’s not the first time I’ve received death threats doing this job, unfortunately, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m not going to allow…
FADEL: Do you consider what he said, the president, a death threat?
CROW: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s no other way to take it.
FADEL: I understand you’ve also gotten other death threats since these comments.
CROW: Yeah.
FADEL: Walk me through what you’ve been dealing with.
CROW: Well, that’s right. I mean, you can’t have something like that come from the president of the United States and him tweet and retweet death threats from the Oval Office and not have people take that seriously. I mean, that is the environment that we’re in right now. When somebody like Donald Trump says something, there are unfortunately people who will act on it. And I know this well ’cause I also lived through the insurrection on January 6. I was trapped at the House gallery while I saw Trump supporters brutally beat and try to derail our democracy. So I’ve seen this happen before. This is, unfortunately, the environment that Donald Trump has created for us.
FADEL: Now, the White House later said the president doesn’t actually want to execute members of Congress. He simply wants to hold them accountable. I want to play you a bit of what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had to say yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAROLINE LEAVITT: 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.
FADEL: Is that what you were doing in that video, asking the military to defy the chain of command?
CROW: Oh, absolutely not. And they actually outright lied. Karoline Leavitt lied about what we said. What we said was U.S. law and the Constitution requires that service members only obey lawful orders, which is actually something that we are trained on from the very first days of our military career. The White House, the president, Stephen Miller and others then said the opposite of what we said and claimed that we were saying that they should disobey lawful orders, which, of course, is not at all what we did say or would ever say. So that is what they do, though. You know, they twist and contort and just lie about what people say and then weaponize it against them. And we’re just never going to stop telling the truth, and we’re not going to bow down from our duty.
FADEL: Now, every one of you in the video have a background in military service, intelligence service. Why did you feel it was important to make this video reminding service members that they can defy illegal orders?
CROW: Well, the president has made a number of very disturbing comments related to the use of the military, everything from saying he’s going to go to war with Chicago to asking whether or not he could use the military to shoot peaceful protesters to suggesting that he’s going to use the military at polling stations, which is a violation of U.S. criminal law. So given his statements and his lawlessness in the last 11 months, we are in an environment where things like this are very possible. They’re even plausible.
And then you add on top of that the fact that you have to train people before an incident, right? When I deployed my troops to Iraq in 2003, I didn’t wait until they had to make a split-second decision on a mission to train them about what they had to do and what their obligation is. You train them before. I spent months training my platoon on marksmanship and small unit tactics but also the law – the law of warfare, the Geneva Convention. You cannot wait until they’re in that moment. And that’s what we’re trying to do, is start a conversation with our troops, start a conversation with America about what could happen and what people will do and what their obligation is in that moment.
FADEL: So it isn’t that you are seeing illegal orders being ordered right now. It’s that you’re anticipating that things that are out there might come to be true?
CROW: Well, I personally, and as a member of Congress, have deep concerns about a lot of the activity that the administration is undertaking. But what I’m talking about here and we were aiming at the video is…
FADEL: Yeah.
CROW: …You know, what our troops, you know, our lower listed in ranking, our operational commanders might be facing in the months and years ahead if Trump indeed carries through on some of his threats.
FADEL: The White House press secretary suggested your message could be punishable by law. Are you anticipating prosecution?
CROW: I don’t know. I mean, I’m not going to be intimidated or be made afraid. I mean, that’s what they want to do. They want to silence dissent. They want the opposition to be afraid and to be intimidated. I took an oath to this country. This is a lifetime oath to do the right thing and to obey the Constitution and to enforce the Constitution. And no threats and intimidation by the president are ever going to stop me from carrying out that oath.
FADEL: Democratic Congressman and former Army Ranger Jason Crow. Thank you for your time.
