In a brief phone interview, Trump said he would instruct the Justice Department to seek the death penalty if the 84-year-old mother of NBC “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie is killed.

The president said the abductors would face “very, very severe — the most severe” federal consequences if Nancy Guthrie is found dead after being abducted from her home outside Tucson on Feb. 1.

Asked if that meant the DOJ would request the death penalty, Trump answered: “The most, yeah — that’s true.”

Federal charges are common in high-profile cases, particularly if there’s an interstate component or if a federal statute is violated. Arizona has the death penalty but many of the 109 inmates on the state’s death row have been there for decades.

Arizona has carried out just two executions since 2022, in part because of a nearly two-year pause by the Democrat-led state government that was lifted in late 2024.

Former President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, but Trump officials plan to move them to supermax prison to serve out their penalties in harsh conditions.