WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump says Democratic members of Congress were “un-American” and “treasonous” when they refused to clap for parts of his State of the Union address — the same speech during which he called for bipartisanship and national unity.

Trump, delivering an Ohio speech on Monday that was supposed to be about his tax cuts, levelled the sensational and obviously inaccurate allegation at his opponents while complaining that they did not applaud six days prior even when he spoke of the record-low in the unemployment rate for Black residents.

Three days later, new government data showed that the Black unemployment rate had spiked, from the record 6.8 per cent to a non-record 7.7 per cent. But Trump likened the Democrats’ silence to a capital crime.

“It’s very selfish. And it got to a point where I really didn’t even want to look too much during the speech over to that side because honestly, it was bad energy. It was bad energy. You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy wild, they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news, really positive news, like that, they were like — death, and un-American. Un-American,” he said.

“Somebody said treasonous. I mean, yeah, I guess, why not. Can we call that treason? Why not,” he said, throwing up one of his hands. “I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

In the State of the Union, Trump said: “Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.”

Treason is a federal offence that does not cover behaviour such as non-clapping.

It is defined as someone who betrays America by assisting its enemies — who, “owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere.” The crime is punishable by death or at least five years in prison.

“This is North Korea-esq(ue),” former Hillary Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson said on Twitter. “You either rise and applaud what Dear Leader says or he thinks you’ve committed treason. He’s beyond an egomaniac. He’s ego-maniacal.”

Trump has regularly used rhetoric more common from the leaders of authoritarian countries than from the president of the United States. As is his common practice, he did so this time in passing, with a kind of half-smile, before moving on to more conventional matters.

The frequency with which he uses such language has diminished its capacity to shock. The accusation did not receive heavy immediate coverage in the U.S. media, which was busy covering a rapid decline in U.S. stocks.

The rest of the speech was similarly uneven. In between talk about the growing economy, Trump boasted of his campaign success, mocked Clinton, offered a kind of pre-emptive excuse for the possibility Republicans will lose the congressional midterm elections, delivered a series of false or misleading claims, and gleefully declared that Republicans had “embarrassed” unnamed people, presumably the FBI, with the memo they released last week that misleadingly alleged wrongdoing.

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