‘Bring the temperature down’: A Q&A with U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio

Since participating in a social media video telling members of the U.S. military and intelligence communities that they can “refuse illegal orders” issued by the president, U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio has received national attention. The newfound spotlight comes thanks in no small part to comments from President Donald Trump posting on social media that Deluzio and others who were featured in the video engaged in “seditious behavior” that could be “punishable by DEATH!” 

Deluzio, a U.S. Navy veteran who has represented Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District since 2023, recently spoke with City & State about the purpose behind the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video, Trump’s claims of sedition and the death threats he has received since catching the attention of the president. 

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

First, how are you doing since the release of the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video? I imagine it’s been a pretty hectic last couple of weeks for you.

Yeah, thank you. I don’t think many Americans would ever expect to have our president call for the arrest and hanging and death of members of Congress for stating a basic principle of the law – one of the same principles that Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has talked about, that Pam Bondi has written in legal briefs. For me, at the Naval Academy, if you’ve been in the military, you learned it in boot camp or Officer Candidate School, ROTC training, and on and on. 

It’s been crazy and unexpected to have the president behave that way. I will tell you, though, what I’ve been hearing from folks across Pennsylvania has been an overwhelming rejection of calls for political violence. Public polling – it’s 2-1 against what Donald Trump has said. That tells me the American people really have had enough of this; whatever our politics might be, they don’t want these calls for violence. They don’t want rhetoric that leads to acts of violence, no matter where it’s coming from or who it’s targeted at. 

That tells me that we are a good and decent people who can govern ourselves. It has really shone through, and what I’ve been hearing from people – again, Democrats, Independents, Republicans – is that the president’s calls here for violence and arrest are just too much, out of bounds, and people are really rejecting it.

I want to get into the president’s comments in a second, but what was the message you were hoping to send with that video? 

Well, it’s a simple one … that if you served in uniform, you learn it from your commanders, along with military JAG attorneys training you on it, is that you have to obey lawful orders. No one can force our service members to follow illegal orders. It’s a fundamental constitutional principle around civilian control in the military and the sanctity of the chain of command. It’s as simple as that. 

And I think what we have seen happen since – I don’t just mean the president’s reckless calls here, but I mean the very somber and serious oversight that we in the Congress now need to conduct with these strikes in Venezuela, the reports of a potential crime around killing folks after the initial strike, the questions around legality of deployment of troops in American streets, questions of legality of the strikes altogether on Venezuela, and the reporting that’s been out there now for so long, of such uncertainty at the highest levels around the legality of things …To me, it’s a tenuous and really fraught moment, and there’s never a bad time to train on standards, train on the law, before you’re in such a moment of crisis. That’s exactly what our commanders do with the best and brightest in our uniform, reminding folks of their oath and what the law is – it’s never a bad idea.

What was your immediate reaction when you saw the posts from President Trump suggesting sedition, “punishable by DEATH!” – all of those comments. What did you make of those at the time?

I wish I could say I was shocked. My first thought was to make sure my family back home was safe … and my staff both in Washington and back in the district, because, of course, death threats came in almost immediately. Then I got to work reminding the country about what the president just said, and what that means for his disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution, how reckless it is. 

We have lived through, in this country, really terrible acts of political violence. Charlie Kirk, who I didn’t agree with, was gunned down. Gov. Shapiro was nearly killed in the governor’s mansion. Then-candidate Donald Trump was nearly killed in Butler – all situations where guys like me condemned political violence, stood with Republicans who were willing to condemn political violence. And yet, when the president calls for not just arrests and hanging of his political rivals – including me – but a deployment of the FBI against the legislative branch, I’ve heard very little out of Republican elected officials. 

Republicans in my district across Pennsylvania have been condemning this. I think it’s a time for moral clarity. I’ve been glad to see some elected officials speak up. I hope more will, because you can’t pick and choose which calls for political violence you condemn. I think it all has to be out of bounds. 

To me, it’s not about me or my colleagues who are the targets here; it is about attacks on our constitutional republic and our democracy. When you threaten violence against people for speaking, for engaging in our democracy and our government, you're stifling speech. You’re attacking self-government. I think it’s dangerous stuff, and I think the American people know we’ve had about enough of it.

What do we need to do as a nation to turn down the temperature? 

I think it’s fine and healthy to have robust debates, tough disagreements. That’s normal. That’s what a strong and healthy democracy is all about. But when the calls for violence come, and they come from the very top – up to and including the president – that’s dangerous stuff. I’ll be blunt: Donald Trump is the president, he’s the commander-in-chief, he was elected to lead this country. He has more ability than anyone else in America, in my opinion, to cool the temperature, to bring things down. That’s the kind of moral leadership that the presidency, the office, has for the American people. I wish he would use it. 

He’s more uniquely situated than anyone else to try to bind the country together. I hope there will be a day when he can, but for now, he seems like he’s willing to look at this and say, “Turn the heat up.” That’s just dangerous stuff that has real consequences for the American people, for my staff, for my family, people in the Congress I serve with. I hope the president will decide that that’s not who he wants to be tomorrow – that he wants to be somebody different, someone who wants to unify the country,

Has the Department of Justice or the FBI contacted you? What can you share about these interactions?

The only thing I’ve talked about is what’s been reported. The FBI was, through the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms, seeking voluntary interviews with me and the other members of Congress. I’m not going to participate in that. That’s about all I can tell you that’s happened here.

You touched on this earlier, but what do you make of Secretary Hegseth’s past comments around illegal orders, given this conversation we’re having now?

Well, it’s not controversial, what he said in the past, what we said in the video, because it’s the law. I think what you’re seeing is, this version of Pete Hegseth now is more interested in just doing whatever Donald Trump tells him …he seems to forget that he used to be able to say clearly what the law is: We can’t force troops to follow illegal orders and they have to follow lawful ones. That’s a basic, fundamental principle that folks learn in uniform, train for it, are reminded of it, and go through scenarios. It’s not a controversial thing, and the fact that these guys have tried to make it into some crisis, it tells me how full of crap their fake outrage here really is.

If you could send any message to the president about all of this, what would you say?

Take a step back. Look, you are the president. You have unique power and ability, by virtue of the office, to unite the American people. Do it. Use the office to try to bring the people together, bring the temperature down on violent rhetoric, on condemning calls for violence, no matter where they come from. Try to tie the country together. The presidency is a unique and powerful office, the most powerful in the land, and there’s no one else on Planet Earth who has that job right now, trusted with that job by the American people. Use it to tie us together and to bring the temperature down.