The Stack: Democrats Tell the Military to Defy Trump
Democrats in Congress have released a dramatic new video urging members of the U.S. military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders” from a second Trump administration. Todd breaks down exactly what’s going on — and why this is far more about politics than principle.
The video features Rep. Jason Crow and others warning troops not to follow Trump, yet when pressed by Martha MacCallum, Crow couldn’t name a single illegal order Trump has ever issued. Instead, he referenced comments, hypotheticals, and vague allusions.
Todd explains why this rhetoric is dangerous, how it feeds the left’s ongoing “Trump-as-dictator” narrative, and why Democrats seem increasingly desperate heading into the midterms. Plus, a preview of next week’s annual Thanksgiving episode — Todd’s favorite of the year — and why the true story of Thanksgiving still matters today.
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📝 Transcript: Democrats Tell the Military to Defy Trump
The Todd Huff Show – November 21, 2025
Host: Todd Huff
Todd Huff: Well, greetings, my friends, and welcome to today's episode of the Todd Huff Show. You know, when we have elected leaders telling the military to refuse orders, it's just unbelievable. It is absolutely unbelievable, the chaos. The turmoil that's out there today. We've got a mess on our hands, and we've got, of course, Trump firing back, calling it seditious behavior. Let's go through this today. Let's set the stage.
Todd Huff: And again, to me, there's one clear message. We don't do themes on this program. I don't do that. We talk about the things that are happening out there, and then let the chips fall where they may. But they keep landing — the chips keep landing — in a nice, neat little row that point to the truth that we absolutely, as conservatives, as Republicans, as reasonable people, as people who care about and love this nation, we have got to win elections.
Todd Huff: And we have to do whatever is legal, moral, and ethical. That's why I'm so candidly infuriated at the senator — the Senate here in my state of Indiana. Still haven't heard, by the way, from Rod Bray about coming on here and sharing his thoughts on redistricting. And it isn't over. I can assure you of that. We're just getting started on that. But we've got to remove these people from office.
Todd Huff: We've got to get rid of the people who do not understand the stakes and what has to be done to win this fight. Some people, like Rod Bray, are fighting this politically. I don't even know if he's fighting it, but they are dealing with these issues as though this is 1950 or some such thing. I don't know. It's not the world that we live in — at all.
Todd Huff: We live in a world that is being threatened by extreme people. Extreme people who are calling — if Trump called for the military under Biden to not listen to his orders — we all know exactly what the response would be. It is unbelievable to me the place that we have gotten in this country. And it's chaos.
Todd Huff: Now, the good news is that we actually have a lot of things heading, headed in the right direction. In fact, you may have seen today's Todd Talk was about the jobs reports. There were more than double the amount of new jobs created in September that were expected. I think there were 119,000. The estimates were somewhere around 50,000.
Todd Huff: And those are good steps. We had a Biden regime that led this country down a path that was destructive — economically destructive. I don't think we still have fully grasped just how destructive the policies under Biden, that were ushered in by the Democrat Party led by the radical leftists, how devastating they truly were. Yes, we experienced it. Yes, it was terrible. And yes, we still have not fully recovered.
Todd Huff: Things are stabilizing. Things are improving. But we were decim— decimated. Decimated in ways — economically decimated, in ways culturally decimated, in ways that relate to the way that liberty is viewed in this country. We were decimated by these policies and by this leadership of the Biden regime.
Todd Huff: And now that we have the power, political power, we're doing some things about it, but we are getting met with obstructionists all along the way. And we've got to defeat these folks politically at the ballot box, in the marketplace of ideas, and that's what I want to talk about today, my friends. Again, still dealing a little bit with the voice situation. I apologize. I think it's largely fine, but occasionally I've got to fight through it.
Todd Huff: I get this every year. I thought I got through — I got through this one time earlier without probably any of you noticing. But I'm fighting it today, so doing my best here to keep that going. But if you want to be part of the conversation, share your thoughts and opinions. You can always email Todd at ToddHuffShow. You can also go to the website.
Todd Huff: You can put your questions and feedback there. Some of these things will end up on our website. I answer questions. We're building out that portion of the website. I want to be as resourceful and helpful as possible — answering your questions for you, but also answering them for others to hear as well, for folks who have the same questions or who want to engage in the same sort of discourse and dialogue.
Todd Huff: I welcome that at the email: Todd@toddhuffshow.com, or on our website. All right? Let's now calibrate here, my friends. Let me ask you something here off the top, though. If you had the choice between spending hours in a doctor's office, getting tests and everything else, just talking with your doctor — would you prefer to do that, or would you prefer to take two soft gels a day? Because I know what I would prefer.
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Todd Huff: All right. So let's get started here today. I don't remember if I played this entire thing, if I just referenced it. I think I mentioned it either on the program or on our Todd Talk. And the Democrats — so Democrats in the House and Senate, six of them — got together, and they made a video.
Todd Huff: Now, they didn't make a video of their own accord, of course. Somebody who's been studying messaging, the Democrat Party apparatus, the party of — well — the messaging firm of the woke movement and so forth, they got these folks together and said, “Hey, you guys have all served in the military.”
Todd Huff: By the way, I appreciate their service in the military, regardless of their political affiliation. I don't really appreciate what they did, though. What did they do? They got on camera, and they started telling members — or service members, I should say — to not follow orders given by Trump. To defy orders from, of course, President Trump, Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
Todd Huff: They said, “Don't listen to these guys,” which is constitutionally — listen, I know the context is king, and nuance matters. We talk about the details and explain these things on this program. Even in this case, where I'm going to tell you that there are times when, in theory, military members should not obey orders if they're truly illegal and unconstitutional.
Todd Huff: You go back to what happened with the Nazis in Germany and so forth. It's so interesting to me — so interesting to me — when I think about the Holocaust and think about those evils and how unified the world was. Thankfully, by the way. Thankfully. I don't mean this as a criticism. I just want to point out that there's a logical inconsistency happening here.
Todd Huff: But the world was on the side, by and large, of what was good. In World War II, they fought against the evils of Nazi Germany. They fought against and stood up against, and wanted consequences for, those people who were involved with the evils of the Holocaust. And we understood objectively right and wrong back then.
Todd Huff: But what's interesting to me today, when I think about that, is we've got a group of people who tell us that the Holocaust either wasn't objectively wrong — I hear these people out there today, which is mind-boggling to me — or they'll tell us it was objectively wrong, but because they have no solid ground if they don't believe in a Creator, there's no objective way to say that it was wrong.
Todd Huff: If there's not a Creator — if there's not an objective moral code — then it would seem strange to hold people, like in the Nuremberg trials, accountable for doing acts of evil, performing acts of evil, even though the orders were given to them by their leader, Hitler, and the other lunatics in that regime. It would seem odd to simply say, “You are held accountable for something we just find socially unacceptable,” instead of absolutely morally wicked and depraved.
Todd Huff: But that's what happened. And at the time, in those days, we had a pretty clear perspective on what was good and what was evil. We've lost that today in this country. We've got a group of people that are wandering around out there that have no idea, morally speaking, which way is up and down. They have no basis for how they determine what's right and wrong.
Todd Huff: A lot of these folks want to deny that there's a Creator. Listen, you can try as many ways as you might. It's impossible to come up with an objective rationale for morality if you do not have a moral lawgiver — if you do not have a Creator. It just isn't possible. It becomes suddenly up to the whims of people on planet Earth, or even up to an individual.
Todd Huff: But how can I enforce my view of morality — if it's not objective — on somebody else? So you have chaos. And this is at the root of the Democrat Party. So as these folks are speaking to you here, lecturing our troops about not taking orders from the commander in chief, by the way, who's constitutionally able and in the position of power to give such orders, they're now telling our troops in this video not to listen to President Trump.
Todd Huff: And I'll give you a flavor of that by playing what they said here. Hold on. Had to go to another— load another page first. Mark Kelly, Representative Chris— let me cue that. So they're going to introduce themselves at first. This is about 90 seconds. I thought this was about a minute. I'm just going to play this for you, and I'm going to withhold— I'm going to be silent for 90 seconds here.
Elissa Slotkin (Soundbite): I'm Senator Elissa Slotkin.
Mark Kelly (Soundbite): Senator Mark Kelly.
Chris Deluzio (Soundbite): Representative Chris Deluzio.
Maggie Goodlander (Soundbite): Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander.
Chrissy Houlahan (Soundbite): Representative Chrissy Houlahan.
Jason Crow (Soundbite): Congressman Jason Crow — I was a captain in the United States Army, former paratrooper and Army Ranger, former intelligence officer, former Air Force.
Group (Soundbite): We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk.
Group (Soundbite): This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens like us. You all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad but from right here at home.
Group (Soundbite): Our laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.
Group (Soundbite): We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you're serving in the CIA, the Army or Navy, the Air Force — your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now more than ever, the American people need you.
Group (Soundbite): We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up the ship.
(End of soundbite.)
Todd Huff: That's the words on the screen here. I mean— very dramatic. You heard the music there. So the question would become: what orders are they opposing? Right? I mean, that, to me, is the next logical question.
Todd Huff: By the way, I think I mentioned this before — this gives the vibe, to me, of— if you remember, back when Trump was elected in 2016, and after that initial period of shock that the Democrats had, when they screamed at the universe and everything else, they finally got their wits about them and thought, “We’ve got to stop this guy.”
Todd Huff: “This guy’s serious. This guy isn't like most people who win president, become President of the United States, who win the presidential election. This guy seems kind of serious about building that wall and making America great again.” Something that, unfortunately, many of these jokers that you just listened to have a problem with — America's greatness, as set forth and founded by those who helped establish this great nation — our Founding Fathers.
Todd Huff: Nonetheless — nonetheless — it reminds me of, again, that a video that popped into mind. After the 2016 election, I remember Sheen — Martin Sheen — was the lead narrator. But there were other members of — not Congress — of Hollywood as well, who got on camera and who begged the Electoral College to not vote for President Trump.
Todd Huff: You could say this was the first attempt at overthrowing our election and subverting our democracy. This is, by the way, the sort of thing that has happened before, where an election was — the outcome was determined — and then other individuals tried to influence the next steps in the process, keeping the person who won the election from actually winning the election that matters. That's the Electoral College vote.
Todd Huff: Anyway, this reminds me of that — the same sort of pathetic approach. But it begs the question here: what order are you so upset about? What are the orders that you would want members of Congress — members of the military, I should say — to actually not follow? Because if you talk in code, if you're just saying, “We're preparing you for what might happen. Don't obey an illegal order,” well, what is an illegal order?
Todd Huff: Right? We've already mentioned that there are provisions in the law that allow people to not follow an illegal order. But that is something that is pretty important that we determine. You can't just say, “I don't like the guy in office, so therefore it's an illegal order.” You can't just say, “I think Trump stole the election with Elon Musk and Musk’s satellites.”
Todd Huff: “And Musk’s high technology and his ability to steal elections.” There are, by the way, leftists who believe that. You can't say that, because of that, I'm not going to follow Trump. There has to be something that you can articulate — that you can be reasonable in your articulation — as to why something is illegal. And that is something that, to me, seems to be the starting point.
Todd Huff: So Martha McCallum had one of these representatives on her show talking about this video, and she asked him numerous times — I think four times in all — she asked him to explain, articulate the reasons that Trump — excuse me — the illegal orders, I should say, that Trump has provided that the military should not be following. She asked four separate times.
Todd Huff: And every time — every single time — he was unable to give specifics. Now, that seems relevant to me. Why make a video telling members of our active-duty armed forces to not obey lawful orders, if you cannot tell us what lawful order — unlawful order, I should say — has been given that they should not be following? And that, to me, seems to be the relevant part of the conversation here today.
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Todd Huff: So, that being said — that being said — what I want to do next is spend a little bit of time here playing a bit of this interview. Of this interview that Martha McCallum had. And again, the idea here is to decide, determine which laws — this is, by the way, Representative Jason Crow.
Todd Huff: She asked him multiple times: which laws are you telling the U.S. military members to not follow by Trump? It seems to be relevant. It seems to be important. You can't just be talking in the abstract constantly. At some point, the chickens have to come home to roost, and you've got to land on an example. Here's that exchange.
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): What law are you talking about that's being broken? And then you said that he's implying that he might do something that they wouldn't want to uphold or follow through with in the future. What are you talking about, specifically?
Jason Crow (Soundbite): Yeah, I appreciate you asking. Well, number one — the protest at Lafayette Square in the first Trump administration, where he said, “Can't you just shoot them? Can't you just shoot them in the legs or something?” That's a direct quote. And of course, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs—
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): That was not a military order. That was a comment.
Jason Crow (Soundbite): When that's coming from the President of the United States to your generals, don't you think that's a request?
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): I'm asking specifically — number one — right now — what you're talking about.
Jason Crow (Soundbite): Yeah. Number two: he's also threatened to send the military into Chicago and other cities to “go to war with those cities.” That is a very, very disturbing thing. Number three: he's also alluded to sending troops to polling stations, which is actually a violation of U.S. law. U.S. criminal law prohibits troops from going to polling stations.
Jason Crow (Soundbite): And he has alluded to that. So those are just one of many examples.
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): You're talking about Donald Trump allusions. You're not talking about actual policy. You're not talking about things that our members — our service members, who we revere and respect — are actually being asked to do.
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): So when you see this video on—
Jason Crow (Soundbite): Exactly.
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): —on social media, I think a lot of people scratch their heads, and they say, “What exactly are they talking about? Are they talking about not allowing gunboats to make it to the United States carrying drugs? Is that what you're talking about?”
Jason Crow (Soundbite):
Martha, here's a novel idea: how about we actually prevent things from happening before they become a problem? I think that's what they're trying to do.
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): What you're saying — what you're saying — is we have to wait until there's a problem to respond to that problem?
Jason Crow (Soundbite): No, I'm not. Right? As a military officer, what I think is important is — we train people, we give them information, we prepare people for challenges coming down the pike. That is what I did as a commander in the military. That's what I'm doing now.
Jason Crow (Soundbite): As we are standing by our troops, we are reminding them of their obligation from the commander in chief because I don't want a military to carry out—
Martha MacCallum (Soundbite): This is very vague, and it was so vague in this video. Nobody— only people could—
(Clip ends here.)
Todd Huff: Sorry there, but that's the end of the clip. So he doesn't give an answer. “What are you talking about, specifically? Give me a specific answer, explanation here.” He can't do it, because there isn't one.
Todd Huff: He wants to do this proactively. He wants to get in front of this. Well, why don't you make a video about every potential thing that could happen in the United States government? Like — I don't know — the Democrat Party abusing its power when they're in control of the House of Representatives to impeach the president. Let's get out there and do a video about that as well.
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Todd Huff: Time out here for me, my friends. Quick time out — back in just a minute.
Todd Huff: Welcome back, my friends. Trump, of course, does not sit back quietly here. He responds to the video and what's being requested of these members of Congress as it pertains to the military — active military — following the orders of the commander in chief today.
Todd Huff: Trump, of course, is not going to sit back and take this quietly. He calls this seditious behavior at the highest level. He “re-truthed” — I think that's the way you say it for the Truth Social media platform — somebody posted on Truth Social, to one of Trump's comments about this being seditious at the highest behavior, someone said, “Hang them. George Washington would.”
Todd Huff: And Trump reposted that. Trump also pointed out that seditious behavior can be punishable by death. And so it's really, obviously, ratcheted up here. By the way, sedition — seditious conspiracy — 18 U.S. Code 2384: conspiring by force to hinder or oppose the U.S. government.
Todd Huff: Now, there's, of course, interpretations on everything. Some say that this sort of thing requires force. Others say, if you're calling for something that basically undermines the way that the government is supposed to operate, that can fall under that particular category. Treason, by the way — that's when you levy war against the United States or give aid and comfort to our enemies.
Todd Huff: Punishable, of course, by death or prison. This isn't really treason in the legal sense. You could say it's treasonous in the general sense of the word, where you're undermining your country. But this isn't legally treason in that sense. But it's definitely undermining our democracy.
Todd Huff: It's remarkable to me — you've got these people who have gotten these platforms, who have cried and wailed about these things for years now. Things like: “Trump stole the election.” Or, “Trump has caused an insurrection on January 6, 2021.” “Trump is a Nazi.” “Trump is this.” “Trump is that.” “Trump is a danger.” “Trump wants to make himself king.”
Todd Huff: We just had “No Kings Day,” “No Kings Protest,” here a couple weeks ago. This stuff — or maybe a month or so ago, whatever. But the point is: what they're accusing Trump of, they're actively trying to prevent him from having certain constitutional authorities. They're encouraging the military to not follow his orders when he is, by the Constitution, the commander in chief.
Todd Huff: That means he's in control of the military forces. What his orders are, the troops are supposed to follow. Now, certainly they don't have to follow illegal orders. But you have to articulate why they are illegal. Saying that Trump alluded to something in a question or comment — that is probably a questionable comment or question to begin with — meaning I don't even know if it's a legitimate quote of his.
Todd Huff: If you say he “alluded” to that, therefore that becomes an order— that's absurd. Asking a question is not giving an order. In fact, those are different. For those of you who served in the military — do your commanding officers, those who had authority over you, did they ever ask you to do stuff?
Todd Huff: “Hey guys, do you care if we go out and go on a little run here? Is it okay with everybody if we go out and do a certain field exercise? Is that okay?” Is that how that worked? It's so stupid to me. Anyone who has the slightest bit of sensibility and reason can say: questions — even, listen, I'm not even granting that the question was legitimately asked by Trump — but a question is not an order.
Todd Huff: An allusion isn't an order. He can't give examples. But yet he's making a video telling troops to disobey the commander in chief, potentially, and he can't articulate which order they should not be obeying. What is really going on here? I've told you off the top: this is about politics.
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Todd Huff: And friends, with that being said, I've got to start wrapping up here today. But we are — listen — this is only going to intensify. As I said in the Todd Talk today, as I've said on this program for a while, the one way through this — the one way we fix this problem, the one way we stop the shenanigans here — is that we win politically.
Todd Huff: We defeat these lunatics, and we have to win on multiple fronts. But we definitely have to win at the ballot box here, my friends. So I've got to wrap up. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you Monday. SDG.
