A billboard campaign telling troops to obey only lawful orders in defiance of the Trump administration has launched in Florida near a military base.
Nonprofits Defiance.org and WhistleblowerAid.org launched the campaign at the MacDill Air Force base in Tampa, urging serving troops to “Obey Only Lawful Orders” amid the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have so far killed more than 100 people.
“We’re making sure troops know their rights and that they’re not alone if they’re told to cross the line,” Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in President Donald Trump’s first administration, said in a statement to 10 Tampa Bay.
“The president may be the commander-in-chief, but even he is bound by the law,” Taylor added. “This campaign is a constitutional alarm bell to remind our servicemembers of that.”
The organizations are offering troops legal advice and providing whistleblower hotlines.
It follows weeks of fury from Trump over a social media video by Democratic members of Congress reminding U.S. troops they can refuse orders if they believe those orders violate their oaths to the Constitution.
The six lawmakers, all of whom have military and intelligence backgrounds, warned military personnel against “threats to our Constitution” coming “from right here at home,” an apparent reference to the Trump administration’s deployment of federalized National Guard troops into Democratic-led cities to support the president’s mass deportation agenda — actions that veterans groups have also publicly condemned.
It prompted Trump to call them ‘traitors” in a furious tirade posted on his Truth Social account.
“Their words cannot be allowed to stand,” the president said. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”
He then reposted another user who encouraged him to “HANG THEM.”
The billboards come amid rising tension with Venezuela following a months-long campaign of military strikes around the South American country targeting small vessels that U.S. officials allege are carrying drugs.
The strikes have been condemned by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other leaders in the region as illegal but, so far, the U.S. has refrained from coming directly into conflict with Maduro’s government or any others in the region.
Maduro remains adamant, however, that the U.S. is aiming to overthrow him and claimed that the country will fight a guerrilla war against U.S. forces if invaded.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced heavy renewed scrutiny after the U.S. military carried out a “double-tap” strike on an alleged drug boat on Sept. 2, after it emerged the first attack did not kill everyone aboard.
Administration officials insisted that the two dozen strikes were fully within legal bounds, supported by the administration’s notice to Congress that the U.S. is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the president has labeled “unlawful combatants.”
Hegseth later rejected bipartisan congressional demands to release footage of the strike.
More U.S. assets, including special ops aircraft and troops, arrived in the Caribbean this week as Trump reiterated Monday that ground-based operations targeting drug traffickers in Venezuela would soon begin, according to a report.
The president confirmed that the U.S. would continue targeting small vessels that his administration claims are carrying drugs with military strikes, while also escalating interdictions of oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast for sanctions violations.
John Bowden contributed reporting
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