Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that Democratic lawmakers who urged the military to refuse illegal orders could be executed, calling them traitors and accusing them of “seditious behavior.”

Democrats immediately slammed Trump’s “absolutely vile” threats against the six senators and representatives, who made the comments in a video posted on X on Tuesday.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” Trump said on Truth Social.

He then added in a later post: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

The 79-year-old also reposted a message from a user urging him to “hang them” and saying that the first US president, George Washington, would have done the same.

The Democratic lawmakers all have backgrounds in the military or intelligence services and included Senator Mark Kelly, a former member of the Navy and NASA astronaut, and Senator Elissa Slotkin, who served with the CIA in Iraq.

“You can refuse illegal orders,” they said in the video, accusing Trump of “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”

They did not specify which orders they were referring to, but Trump has ordered the National Guard into multiple US cities, in many cases against the wishes of local officials, in a bid to bring allegedly rampant unrest under control.

Abroad, Trump has ordered strikes on a series of alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that have left more than 80 people dead and which experts say are illegal.

- ‘Lighting a match’ -

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later walked back Trump’s suggestion, saying that the president did not want to see members of Congress executed.

She still lashed out at the lawmakers, saying: “Why aren’t you talking about what these members of Congress are doing to encourage and incite violence?”

The Democratic Party reacted furiously to Trump’s remarks.

“Trump just called for the death of Democratic elected officials. Absolutely vile,” the party posted on its official X account.

The lawmakers in the video vowed not to be deterred by Trump’s threats, saying they were “veterans and national security professionals who love this country” and had sworn an oath to defend the US constitution.

“That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation,” they said.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of fanning the flames of violence among his supporters.

“He is lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Trump previously evoked the death penalty in 2023 in relation to his former top US military officer Mark Milley, who became an outspoken critic of the president.

After Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that he had secretly called his Chinese counterpart amid tensions after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021, Trump said “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Trump’s death penalty comments came as he faces perhaps the most political pressure since his return to the White House in January.

In recent weeks his grip on the Republican party has been shaken by the scandal over disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and by off-year elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia in which Democrats scored major wins.