WH’s Karoline Leavitt: No, The President Does Not Want To Execute Members Of Congress
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes face off over President Donald Trump’s reaction to Democrats in the House and Senate calling for servicemembers to refuse “illegal orders” from the president.
NANCY CORDES, CBS NEWS: Karoline, this morning President Trump accused six democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior, punishable by death. Just to be clear, does the president want to execute members of Congress? KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE: No, let’s be clear about what the president is responding to, because many in this room want to talk about the president’s response, but not what brought the president to responding in this way. You have sitting members of the United States Congress who conspired together to orchestrate a video message to members of the United States military, to active duty service members, to members of the national security apparatus, encouraging them to defy the president’s lawful orders. The sanctity of our military rests on the chain of command, and if that chain of command is broken, it can lead to people getting killed.
