Tom Basile, host of the Newsmax show “America Right Now,” argued that Republicans should explore whether candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) can legally be seated in Congress, contending that their policy positions raise constitutional questions about the congressional oath of office.
Basile, a Fordham Law School graduate, said during Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show that the issue is not whether socialists or communists are allowed to run for office.
“It’s not illegal to be a socialist or a communist in this country. You could literally be an enemy of the state, which is, if you’re a communist or a socialist, what you are, and run for office. You wanna run for Congress? Sure, you can run for Congress. But running and getting elected is different than actually taking and holding office,” Basile said.
He argued that the Constitution’s oath of office requirement creates what he described as an unresolved legal question for lawmakers.
“The Framers of the Constitution understood that there would be internal threats to this republic, and that’s one of the reasons why in the Constitution they put the fact that you have to take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States in order for you to hold public office in this country,” Basile said.
According to Basile, lawmakers who advocate replacing the nation’s constitutional system could have difficulty truthfully taking that oath.
“If you want to eviscerate the Constitution and our entire form of government and the Bill of Rights, which is really what the DSA wants to do, then how can you legally take the oath of office to support and defend the Constitution?” he asked.
Calling it “a novel legal question,” Basile said House Republicans should begin preparing now for potential legal challenges before newly elected members are sworn in.
“I think that this is a novel legal question that Speaker Johnson and his team should be gaming out, and gaming out the arguments every step of the way,” he said, adding that Republicans should be prepared if the issue ultimately reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
Basile also questioned whether DSA-backed members of Congress should receive access to classified information.
“How are you gonna give a DSA member who gets elected to Congress a top secret or SCI security clearance where they’re gonna have access to national security information potentially? You can’t. How can you possibly do that?” he said.
During the interview, former prosecutor and Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips cited the 1969 Supreme Court case Powell v. McCormack, which held that the House could not refuse to seat a duly elected member who met the Constitution’s qualifications, and asked whether Republicans would be willing to pursue the legal fight Basile proposed.
Basile acknowledged the political hurdles but said the issue deserves consideration before the next Congress convenes.
“I’m not sure that they have the stomach to do it. They don’t have the stomach to do a lot. But somebody should be opening a book and figuring out what kind of a case that they can make,” he said.
He concluded by urging conservatives to begin developing legal arguments now rather than responding after the fact.
“This is a really important discussion to be had, and unlike what conservatives and Republicans often do, they wait until they’re playing defense. This is an opportunity to start playing offense from a legal standpoint and gaming this thing out and starting now,” Basile stressed.
Live August 05 https://t.co/is10LlOKPN
— Michael Patrick Leahy (@michaelpleahy) August 5, 2026
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
