On the morning of Thursday, November 20, 2025, the President of the United States said that six members of Congress had committed a crime "punishable by DEATH."

He said they had engaged in "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL." He said each of them "should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. … An example MUST BE SET." He reposted messages from other accounts, including one calling for the six to be hanged.

One of the six was a congressman from western Pennsylvania. So is Guy Reschenthaler. What he said about the death threat is the subject of this post, and it can be summarized quickly: nothing. He never addressed it. When he finally spoke, he used his credentials as a former Navy lawyer to vouch for the president and accused the other side of "sowing division."

What the six actually said

The trigger was a video, released that week, in which six congressional Democrats — all military veterans — spoke directly to service members and intelligence personnel.

"We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now," said Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

Rep. Chris Deluzio, a Navy veteran who represents western Pennsylvania — the same corner of the state as Reschenthaler — said that Americans' trust in the military "is at risk," and that "right now, the threats to our constitution aren't just coming from abroad. … You must refuse illegal orders."

They closed together with a line from naval history: "Don't give up the ship."

That's the whole offense. Six veterans reminded troops that they must refuse illegal orders.

This is not a controversial legal proposition. It is black-letter military law. The Uniform Code of Military Justice requires troops to obey only lawful orders, and a service member can be prosecuted for carrying out an unlawful one. It is taught in basic training. It is the entire premise of the Nuremberg principle.

And of all the members of Congress in America, the one best positioned to say so out loud was Guy Reschenthaler.

He was a Navy JAG. That's the point.

Reschenthaler is not a random backbencher with an opinion about military law. He was a Judge Advocate General's Corps officer — a Navy lawyer — and deployed to Baghdad in 2009. He says so himself, constantly. He said it in his statement about this very episode: "As a former Navy JAG (Judge Advocate General) who prosecuted terrorists in Iraq…"

A JAG officer's job includes advising commanders on the legality of orders. The "refuse illegal orders" rule is not an abstraction to a former JAG. It is the thing he was trained to apply.

So when the president called it seditious to restate that rule, and floated execution for the people who did, the natural person to explain the law was the JAG in the room.

What he did instead

Deluzio said out loud what the test was. "I think this is a moment where everyone — Democrat, Republican, you name it — should be condemning the president's calls for political violence against me and others," he told WESA, "and I think every elected Republican in Pennsylvania should be asked whether they're going to condemn that call for violence."

So reporters asked them.

Reschenthaler's office did not immediately respond to WESA's request for comment that Thursday afternoon.

Two days later, City & State Pennsylvania published the emailed statement he eventually sent. Here it is in full:

"As a former Navy JAG (Judge Advocate General) who prosecuted terrorists in Iraq, I know President Trump's actions are both lawful and necessary. My Democrat (sic) colleagues are dangerously sowing division to distract from the President's successes."

He went on to list those successes: securing the southern border, dismantling terrorist networks, "decimated Iran's nuclear capabilities," a Middle East peace deal, and "taking the fight to foreign drug cartels that funnel illicit drugs into our towns and kill our friends, families, and neighbors."

Read it again for what isn't there.

There is no mention of the death threat. No mention of hanging. No mention of the word "violence" at all. The question on the table was whether the president should be calling for the execution of members of Congress, and the answer he gave was a press release about border security.

And note the sleight of hand in the first sentence. Reschenthaler invoked his military-law credentials to certify that Trump's actions are lawful — a different question than the one being asked, and one nobody had put to him. Meanwhile the six veterans who said troops must refuse unlawful orders got called dangerous dividers. The former Navy JAG's contribution to a fight about military law was to certify the boss and insult the lawyers on the other side.

The word "dangerously," in his statement, is applied to the people who were threatened.

Three other Pennsylvania Republicans found a way

Here is why "he was just being a loyal Republican" doesn't cover it. Other Pennsylvania Republicans were asked the same question, and they managed.

Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman from Bucks County and a former FBI agent, condemned it directly. "When our military is dragged into partisan conflicts, it is not only irresponsible – it is deeply disrespectful to those who serve," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Having served in the FBI, I've seen how inflamed rhetoric can stoke tensions and lead to unintended violence." He added that "incendiary rhetoric" of this kind "heightens volatility, erodes public trust, and has no place in a constitutional republic."

U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, who defended Trump on the substance and called the video "inappropriate and unwarranted," still said this: "President Trump can speak for himself, but as I've said repeatedly, there is no place in either party for violent rhetoric and everyone needs to dial it down a notch."

State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick, a former Army helicopter pilot who disagreed with the video, closed her statement this way: "Despite our disagreements, we should never condone political violence of any kind."

You did not have to agree with Deluzio to clear this bar. McCormick and Pennycuick both thought the video was wrong and still said the sentence. It costs nothing. It is one line.

Reschenthaler didn't say it.

Neither did Rep. Scott Perry or state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who never responded to City & State at all. Rep. Mike Kelly's office said he wasn't available, pointing instead to his Fox appearance the day before, where he wondered aloud, "Why would you bring out something like that?"

This is who he is when it counts

Reschenthaler is the House Chief Deputy Whip — the member whose job is counting votes and holding the Republican conference together. He is, by design, one of the people other Republicans look to before they decide what's safe to say.

When the moment came to say that calling for a colleague's death is out of bounds, the man in that job said the president was right and the veterans were divisive.

It fits the rest of his record on democracy. Reschenthaler signed the amicus brief in Texas v. Pennsylvania, the lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to throw out votes from four states including his own. He voted to reject Arizona's electoral votes on the night of January 6, 2021 — and then, hours after the Capitol was stormed, voted at 3:08 a.m. to reject Pennsylvania's, the same ballots that had just reelected him. He later called that a "symbolic vote." He voted against impeaching Trump for inciting the attack, and against creating an independent commission to investigate it.

He also refused about 40 interview requests from Pittsburgh's WTAE in the two months after January 6, when the station wanted to ask him about exactly those votes — a pattern of ducking questions we documented here.

There's a version of this that's a partisan disagreement about a video. That's not what happened. A president said members of Congress should be executed and boosted a call to hang them. His own colleagues asked Pennsylvania's Republicans a yes-or-no question about political violence. Three said no to it in some form. The one with the military-law credentials used them to say the president was right, and never mentioned the threat at all.

If you want to know what Guy Reschenthaler will do when the pressure is real, that week is the answer.

Source

Hilary Danailova, "PA GOP lawmakers weigh in on Trump accusing veteran pols of 'seditious behavior,'" City & State Pennsylvania, November 22, 2025, and Chris Potter, "Trump accuses Pa.'s Deluzio and Houlahan of 'seditious behavior,'" WESA via Pennsylvania Capital-Star, November 20, 2025.