When Republicans slam Democrats, one typical elitist-media rebuttal is to insist the GOP has "no evidence" of its claims. When Elissa Slotkin and her Democrat squad urged military personnel to disobey illegal orders, they had "no evidence" of any illegal orders from Trump. TV interviews have underlined repeatedly they denied having any proof.
So naturally, PolitiFact lined up with the Democrats. Lou Jacobson's article carried no "Truth-O-Meter" ruling for anyone, but the headline pointed to Trump as the factual offender:
Donald Trump said Democrats’ call to military amounts to sedition. Experts say that’s doubtful
Jacobson displayed his selectivity from the start, obsessing over Trump's "sedition" message and not on any Democrat evidence. Jacobson admitted there was none produced: "The video did not specify what orders the lawmakers were referring to." But that apparently doesn't need any rebuttal from "Experts."
After Democratic lawmakers urged U.S. military service members not to carry out illegal orders, President Donald Trump called the lawmakers’ actions seditious. Legal experts said that’s unsupported.https://t.co/EOdMPlbxo8
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) November 24, 2025
Senator Slotkin and the other responded to Sunday-show questions about proof of illegal orders by talking vaguely about the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis and a story told by former Trump defense secretary Mark Esper that Trump allegedly raised shooting George Floyd protesters "in the legs" during the 2020 riots. Liberal journalists accept these stories without any recordings, just as they accepted the claim Trump said our war dead were "suckers and losers." The standard isn't about evidence -- it's about causing damage.
So Jacobson summoned the well-selected experts:
Legal experts told PolitiFact that Trump’s sedition accusation doesn’t hold up. They said they see no path for charging the Democratic lawmakers under any form of sedition law.
"Absolutely not," said Rod Smolla, a Vermont Law and Graduate School law professor. "They are not conspiring to overthrow the government — they are expressing their views critical of orders coming from the president that they believe are illegal."
Harping on the word "sedition," Jacobson found the Democrats were broadly protected in this video: "even speech that advocates lawbreaking in the abstract is protected," said Timothy Zick, a College of William & Mary law professor. And in this case, the lawmakers "are urging that the law be upheld, not violated."
The expert closest to challenging the Democrats wasn't questioning their evidence, but suggesting military personnel should avoid the video's message:
Richard D. Rosen, an emeritus law professor at Texas Tech and retired Army colonel, said if he were on active duty, he would advise soldiers to ignore the video.
"While lawmakers may score political points, soldiers who follow their advice could be imprisoned, receive a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, and lose all pay and allowances," Rosen said.
The Democrats have been largely ignored by the "nonpartisan fact-checkers" at PolitiFact.Sen. Slotkin has only three fact checks on PolitiFact, and Sen. Mark Kelly has seven over the years (four on the True/Mostly True side). The House Democrats featured in the video -- Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, and Maggie Goodlander -- have no "Truth-O-Meter" pages on PolitiFact.
