Video transcript
This is something that no generation of American has ever seen, not in 250 years of constitutional history. A group of sitting members of Congress, senators and representatives went on camera and told active duty military personnel and the CIA to ignore orders of the president of the United States. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. What message is that sending to the rest of the world? For the first time in American political history, members of the United States Congress openly encouraged the military to look at the commander in chief and say, no. You can say, and it's reasonable to say, well, this is just advice, right? It's a reminder that you don't follow illegal orders. Sounds reasonable until you look at history because history has a merciless way of identifying patterns long before politicians will admit to them. In the entire American experiment, there are only a handful of moments, anything like this has occurred. And every single one of those was a moment that was a prelude to national fracture. 1860 to 1861, it was the secession winter. Southern leaders encourage officers at the federal level and forts to abandon the union and pledge loyalties to the states. Not normal politics. This was the beginning of the rupture and then came Fort Sumter. 1870, reconstruction. Some states rejected federal authority outright, sheriffs, militias, even sometimes judges refused federal directives, but Congress itself, they never told the army to ignore the president. In Vietnam, members of Congress denounced the war, denounced Nixon, denounced Johnson, but no one ever told active duty troops, disobey the commander in chief. It wasn't done. Because every generation up until this one understood something very basic. You cannot politicize the chain of command without breaking the Republic. And once the military begins to decide on its own, which orders are legitimate, which president they prefer, you no longer have civilian control. You no longer have a Republic. You have factions inside an armed institution. And that is exactly how nations collapse and every single one of those sitting representatives know it. Turkey, Argentina, Spain, Egypt, every single example, the pattern is always the same. Political parties begin encouraging the military to resist the other side and the center completely collapses. And this is the part where you need to hear me clearly. What we saw here this week with this is not the Bubba Effect, where ordinary citizens lose trust in authority or rally behind the local guy. No, no, no. This is something far more seditious and serious. This is the institutional Bubba Effect, where leaders inside the government with their own plan, the political class, begin urging Bubba in the military to take sides in domestic political disputes. That is a very, very bright line. The great unbroken line in American history, unbroken in our history. That line kept us from becoming every other failed Republic. And now these people have stepped over it. Now let me take on Donald Trump. Is this treason? No. Treason has a very narrow definition. Thank God. It requires aiding an enemy of the United States or levying war against the United States. So this is not treason in the strict constitutional sense. But here's the question. Isn't it something just as dangerous? Isn't it an attempt, intentional or not, to plant the idea inside the military that the president's orders are optional? The military does not take sides, period. Even if these lawmakers thought they were just, you know, recommending moral guidance, they were, they believe they were just reminding the troops to refuse illegal orders. That's not your job. That's the job of the generals and the job of Pete Hegseth. They do that in every classroom, every time they're sworn in, they are told those words. That comes from within the ranks, not from political leadership. They told the rest of the world that in the bloodstream of our Republic now is questioning the president. And that is unprecedented. It's historic and impossible to remove because it breaks the guardrails.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.