President Donald Trump was just being cheeky when he suggested that Democrats committed treason, a White House spokesman said Tuesday.
Trump was only poking fun and speaking "tongue in cheek" when he blasted Democrats as acting "treasonous" when they refused to applaud his State of the Union address.
While discussing tax cuts on Monday at an Ohio manufacturing plant, Trump said Republicans went "totally crazy, wild, they loved everything" about his address before Congress last week.
He then cast Democrats' refusal to applaud as an affront to the nation.
Trump added that they'd prefer to see him do badly than the country do well.
"Can we call that treason? Why not?" he asked.
"They certainly didn't seem to love our country very much," Trump added.
Trump also lobbed an oft-repeated accusation, telling the crowd that Democrats don't want to secure the nation's borders.
"They don't care about the security of our country," he said, referencing a violent street gang. "They don't care about MS-13 killers pouring into our country."
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., ripped into the president for his accusations, which came less than a week after his address to Congress calling for bipartisanship in Washington.
Jeffries said Tuesday that treason is "not a laughing matter," but a "serious crime embedded in the Constitution, punishable by death."
Jeffries, who represents a large swath of Brooklyn and Queens, went on to blast Trump for talking treason at an event that was billed as a push for the GOP-backed tax plan and "not a political event."
"How dare you lecture us about treason. This is not a dictatorship. It's a democracy," Jeffries said. "And we do not have to stand for a reality show host masquerading as president of the United States."
