With an 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline for Iran to strike a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a number of Democratic lawmakers spent the final hours urging American service members to refuse orders from President Donald Trump if they deemed those orders unlawful.
Trump had warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if no deal was reached. Democrats responded not by engaging Iran’s leadership, but by directing messages at military commanders.
“This is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote Tuesday. “The President’s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted. To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.”
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) addressed his message to the Joint Chiefs. “The UCMJ and federal law prohibit war crimes. Striking civilian infrastructure that causes disproportionate civilian harm constitutes war crimes. You will disobey those illegal orders. If you commit war crimes, the next Administration will prosecute you,” Lieu wrote.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) called Trump’s words the language of someone mentally unfit. “These are not the words of a sane person. Calling for the elimination of a civilization is a war crime. As I’ve repeatedly said, our military must only follow lawful orders. Every American of good conscience must repudiate this,” Crow said.
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) dismissed the possibility that power plants or bridges could serve valid military purposes and called out Trump’s language directly. “Threatening to target power plants and other non-military targets is not strength. If those words become orders to destroy civilian infrastructure with no valid military purpose, it’s hard to see how they would not violate the laws of armed conflict. America leads best with strength, discipline, and professionalism. Illegal orders to make civilians suffer would be a black mark on our military and our country,” Kelly said.
The warnings from Democrats were not limited to Tuesday’s deadline. Kelly and Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) were among the leaders of what critics called “The Seditious Six,” a group of Democratic lawmakers who released a video months earlier urging troops to reject orders from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that they considered unlawful or illegal, framing the guidance as a preemptive response to the administration’s aggressive posture toward criminal organizations and foreign adversaries.
Slotkin doubled down Tuesday. “I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders. Even as the Commander-in-Chief tells the world otherwise. It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops, especially those in command, will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders,” she posted.
No Democratic lawmaker cited specific intelligence indicating illegal orders had been given or were imminent. The administration did not immediately respond to the Democrats’ statements as the deadline approached.
