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President Donald Trump gave the Iranian regime a deadline<\/a> of 8 p.m. on Tuesday to reach a deal with the United States and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and a number of Democrats have spent the hours leading up to that deadline warning American service members to be wary of \u2014 or disregard \u2014 any potentially \u201cillegal\u201d orders.<\/p>\n Responding to Trump\u2019s deadline \u2014 and his warning that \u201ca whole civilization will die tonight\u201d \u2014 Democrats quickly lined up to claim that the president was either not in full possession of his mental faculties or about to issue illegal orders to the United States military, if not both.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office. The President\u2019s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted,\u201d Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared<\/a>. \u201cTo every individual in the President\u2019s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) addressed his warning<\/a> to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying, \u201cThe UCMJ and federal law prohibit war crimes. Striking civilian infrastructure that causes disproportionate civilian harm constitutes war crimes. You will disobey those illegal orders. If you commit war crimes, the next Administration will prosecute you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not the words of a sane person,\u201d Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) added<\/a>. \u201cCalling for the elimination of a civilization is a war crime. As I\u2019ve repeatedly said, our military must only follow lawful orders. Every American of good conscience must repudiate this.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) ignored the possibility that a bridge or power plant might be considered a military target if it was part of the necessary infrastructure sustaining and supplying the Iranian forces, and instead suggested that any attack on such infrastructure would necessarily be an attack on civilian populations.<\/p>\n \u201cThreatening to target power plants and other non-military targets is not strength. If those words become orders to destroy civilian infrastructure with no valid military purpose, it\u2019s hard to see how they would not violate the laws of armed conflict. America leads best with strength, discipline, and professionalism. Illegal orders to make civilians suffer would be a black mark on our military and our country,\u201d Kelly said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Democrats began warning American troops that \u201cillegal\u201d orders were a possibility \u2014 and were perhaps even to be expected \u2014 from President Donald Trump\u2019s administration months earlier, when \u201cThe Seditious Six<\/a>\u201d published a video<\/a> in response to a number of precision strikes on narco-terrorists. Led by Senators Kelly and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), the group called on members of the military to refuse \u201cillegal\u201d or \u201cunlawful\u201d orders while heavily insinuating that if Trump or War Secretary Pete Hegseth had not already given such orders, they were likely to do so.<\/p>\n