GOP presidential contender Bill Weld accused President Trump of committing treason and pointed out that the penalty for that offense is capital punishment.

Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, the 74-year-old former governor of Massachusetts said Trump’s alleged pressuring of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, amounted to treason.

“Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election, it couldn’t be clearer, and that’s not just undermining democratic institutions,” Weld said. “That is treason. It’s treason, pure and simple. And the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That’s the only penalty.”





Tempering his words a bit, Weld said he thinks that Congress should work to remove Trump from office.

“The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office, and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a plea deal,” he said.

Weld, who was appearing in the interview alongside other long shot GOP challengers former Rep. Joe Walsh and former Gov. Mark Sanford, said he thinks the president is also guilty of bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors. He said those alleged offenses don’t matter though because of the “treason.”

“He’s such a lawless man. We’ve got treason, and we don’t have to dribble around the court. We can go right for the hoop,” he said.

“It’s well past time for this guy … to be carted off to save us all,” Weld added.