Trump says he was not threatening Democrats whom he accused of ‘inflammatory behavior punishable by death’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that he “does not threaten to kill” a group of Democratic lawmakers whom he accused of “inflammatory behavior” that he said is “punishable by death.”

“In the old days, if you said something like that, it was a death sentence,” the president said in an interview Friday on a radio show hosted by Governor Brian Kilmeade when asked to clarify what he meant.

The president denied that he threatened members of Congress. “I think they’re in serious trouble. I’d say they’re in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death. This was seditious behavior.”

Trump said that the lawmakers who appeared in the video “broke the law,” and added, “I can say that if I had said that one day and there had been a Democrat as president, all hell would have broken loose. And it has.”

The president made the accusation and warning on Thursday after Democratic lawmakers, many of them veterans, released a video urging members of the military and the intelligence community not to follow illegal orders.

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who led the video, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.