The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Nov. 23, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined here in studio by Colorado Democratic Congressman Jason Crow, who is one of the six lawmakers who released a recorded video earlier last week urging service members to defy illegal and unlawful orders. Good morning.
JASON CROW: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And it was that video that prompted some of this rhetoric from the President. I want to speak though about what's happening right now. I understand there was a bomb threat against your office in Aurora, Colorado, that your family has received painful death threats, even murder threats. Here is some of what your office released.
[SOUND ON TAPE STARTS]
UNKNOWN CALLER 1: I hope you all get murdered.
UNKNOWN CALLER 2: You ain't an American, f*****, you're a communist
[SOUNDS ON TAPE ENDS]
MARGARET BRENNAN: These, I believe, are phone calls that were made to your office. Are any of these threats credible?
REPRESENTATIVE JASON CROW: We don't know, Margaret, we're going to take these seriously, but it's very disturbing stuff when you have the President of the United States threatening to execute and to hang and to arrest using this rhetoric, people listen to it. We've seen before a pattern of inciteful, dangerous rhetoric being used by the president and then people acting on that. You know, I lived through and experienced January 6, a very similar dynamic. He's been doing this for years, saying things and total disregard for the outcome, and what might happen when he throws this stuff out in the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the President has made these social media posts, but then he then sort of walked some of those threats back, saying he wasn't threatening death. He was saying sedition was often, in the past, punishable by death. And then, before you appeared here today, on social media he put out, "the traitors that told the military to disobey my orders, should be in jail right now, not roaming the fake news networks. I guess that's us trying to explain what they said was okay. It wasn't and never will be. It was sedition at the highest level. It's a major crime. There can be no other interpretation of what they said." That's a quote from what he put on social media. Do you have any idea what all these threats actually mean? Because he mentioned in an interview military courts and referenced the DOJ as well.
REP. CROW: No, we don't know what this means. He doesn't know what this means because he's irresponsible. He's acting dangerous. He's acting in an inciteful way. There's two things going on here Margaret. One is the irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric by the President of the United States threatening to have members of Congress executed who he disagrees with. But it's also so telling that when members of Congress simply remind service members of the Constitution and their duty to obey the law, which is not just our right, but is our obligation to do, that he cannot handle that, and he resorts to threats of violence and threats of arrest and execution. That tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump's respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, and actually underscores our point.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, let's get to the content of what you had in that video you released because there are also 15 House Republicans who are also veterans who released a video, including a retired three-star Marine Corps general, Jack Bergman. Take a listen to this.
[ SOUND ON TAPE STARTS ]
REP. JACK BERGMAN (R-MI) : Troops. Listen up. Any service member who refuses a lawful order is subject to court martial for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
REP. AUGUST PFLUGER (R-TX): We study what's lawful and what's not lawful, and the Democrats' stunt insinuating that there are illegal or unconstitutional orders. It's downright dangerous.
REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA) : It is corrosive. It is meant to weaken our country and weaken the military.
[ SOUND ON TAPE ENDS]
MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you respond to these allegations from your colleagues, fellow veterans, that what you have put out there is weakening and corrosive to the military?
REP. CROW: Well, these, unfortunately, are some of Trump's core supporters that are rallying behind the president, and they know better. They know exactly the difference between lawful versus unlawful. We were very clear in the video that what we're talking about is unlawful orders. You have the president's spokesperson going on into a press conference this past week and saying that we called for people to disobey lawful orders. They're simply lying because the truth is unacceptable to them. It's unacceptable. We wanted to start a conversation, and we did, about the dangerous rhetoric this president is using and the threats that he's made to use our military in an unlawful way.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Specifically, what?
REP. CROW: Well, send troops into Chicago, send troops into polling stations, kill terrorist families, arrest and execute, arrest and execute members of Congress--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --he hasn't done those things.
REP. CROW: Shoot peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square, need I go on? He has a history of doing this, and if we wait until the moment that he gives a manifestly unlawful order to a young soldier, then we have failed them. We have to start that conversation now and get people thinking about the distinction which is exactly what we did.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, so those were comments, not orders he gave, and social media posts and like, but- but I hear you that- that words matter. But the standard for troops, as I understand it, is that they should consult with the staff judge advocate, the staff legal counsel regarding orders, if they have legal questions. There is a process in place. Are you telling the rank and file troops to go outside of that practice?
REP. CROW: No, absolutely not. Let me use an example of how this plays out and what this looks like downrange, as we say in the military--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Yeah, because it sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on those people down the chain.
REP. CROW: I did three combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And before each of those combat deployments, I sat my soldiers down, my paratroopers and my Rangers, and we talked about the law of war. We lo- we talked about lawful versus unlawful orders, about the protection of civilians in conflict, right? Because you can't wait until a soldier is in the moment and has to make a split-second decision about what to do to train them, right? You have to talk about it. You have to train them before, which was why we put this video out, to get people thinking about their obligation. And all of the threats and all of the things the President have said would be manifestly unlawful and would be the types of orders that people shouldn't carry through because they would be murder if people actually did the things that Donald Trump threatened.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But we don't know yet that the deployment of troops on U.S. soil, if you were referring to the National Guard deployments in major U.S. cities, is actually unlawful. That's- that's tied up in the courts right now.
REP. JASON CROW: Well, we're talking about the decision of troops on the ground, out in operations, right? Their interface with civilians, shooting civilians, going to polling stations, which is a violation of U.S. criminal law. Things that are ma--
MARGARET BRENNAN:-- these things haven't happened, you are afraid they will.
REP. JASON CROW: --things that are manifestly unlawful, that our troops might be put in the position to carry out, because that has what- that is what the president has repeatedly threatened to do. So again, it's very telling that simply restating their obligation to the Constitution and the law, which we do constantly with our service members gets this type of response from the president. You know, I am not going to be threatened and intimidated by the president of the United States. I have a job to do, and that is to ensure people follow the law. I took an oath to this country. It is a lifetime oath that I intend to carry out, and I am not going to be intimidated and threatened by the president and stop reminding people to follow the law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But I've talked to lawyers about this, and military lawyers about this, and there is some frustration that, you know, lawmakers haven't been in Washington doing their job in terms of oversight. There aren't hearings on Venezuela, there aren't hearings on those deployments of the National Guard, and yet there are public videos calling on troops at low ranks to make decisions unto themselves here about what is lawful or unlawful, or recall their training, or talk to their staff judge advocate about this. I mean this- why not first publicly call for a hearing before you call on them?
REP. CROW: First of all, two separate issues. So on the hearing, absolutely right. We are pushing the Trump administration to actually give us briefings, give us hearings. Mike Johnson- Speaker Johnson, shut Congress down twice, twice, to avoid votes on releasing the Epstein files.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He would argue Democrats shut down Congress to- for the healthcare argument.--
REP. CROW: It's very clear what they did. I still came to D.C. anyhow and pushed for oversight and pushed for briefings. So I've been in Congress for seven years almost, and I have never seen the lack of briefings and oversight and ability to access information. I have been completely shut out of the DOD and the CIA at this point as a member of the Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services Committee. So this administration--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Isn't so much of this because the Republican leadership in Congress that isn't demanding those things.
REP. CROW: Exactly, right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So-
REP. CROW: Congress has the power to do this, so they're right. We need to be doing this. Democrats are trying to do it. We are being stonewalled and blocked by the Republicans, blocked by the- by the administration, because they actually don't want us to do the oversight, because they're afraid of what we're going to learn. And that is different, Margaret, than what we're talking about, you know, operational decisions, decisions to go to to, you know, war in the Caribbean, Venezuela, which are strictly within the purview of Congress. And Congress needs to be making those decisions and debating it, versus--
MARGARET BRENNAN: The White House says, oh it's not an act of war. It's, you know, foreign policy. And the president has a lot of leeway under the Constitution. That's their argument.
REP. CROW: Well, we've been hearing this for 25 years, which is why Iraq and Afghanistan went on for as long as it did. We spent $3 trillion, lost 7000 service members' lives, and those ended poorly. Congress has to make that decision. Congress needs to be accountable for it, and Congress needs to be debating this before the American people, going to the American people and telling them why they should send their sons and daughters into conflict and they should spend hundreds of billions of dollars of their hard earned money. This president doesn't want that process to happen. And as somebody that did three combat tours in these wars, I've had enough of Congress being cut out of it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you'll see in some of our upcoming polling data that the American public would like more information about the plans for Venezuela, which you were referencing there. Congressman Crow, thank you.
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