What you’re not going to do is tell Iraq War vet and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) what is and isn’t treason.
The Black Hawk-helicopter pilot who lost both legs during her service took exception to President Donald Trump’s comments Monday that Democrats who didn’t clap for him during his State of the Union address were “un-American” and “treasonous.”
“We don’t live in a dictatorship or a monarchy,” Duckworth tweeted Monday. “I swore an oath—in the military and in the Senate—to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to mindlessly cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs and clap when he demands I clap.”
“Cadet Bone Spurs” has become Duckworth’s pet nickname for the president, a reference to one of his excuses for avoiding the Vietnam draft. (He deferred five times, the first four because he was in college.)
Duckworth followed up her tweet with a quote from former President Theodore Roosevelt, “a Republican who earned the applause he received.” Roosevelt once said that “to announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable.”
Basically: “I don’t treason, you treason.” (Yes, I know it’s not a verb.)
The White House attempted to contextualize Trump’s comments, which were delivered in a speech given Monday afternoon in Ohio, where your little orange president was plugging the GOP’s tax-reform plan.
As The Hill reports, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Tuesday that Trump was being “tongue in cheek” when he accused Democrats of being treasonous for not clapping for him during the SOTU.