In 2004, while on deployment in Iraq, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) was co-piloting was hit by a rocket grenade launcher. Duckworth would lose her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries she suffered in the attack. So you can imagine how much time she has for a president who continues to claim that Democrats don’t care about the military during the government shutdown. And on Sunday, Duckworth read the president for filth (as the kids say).
“Does he even know that there are service members who are in harm’s way right now, watching him, looking for their commander in chief to show leadership, rather than [trying] to deflect blame?” Duckworth said, The Hill reports. “Or that his own Pentagon says that the short-term funding plans he seems intent on pushing is actually harmful to not just the military but to our national security?
“I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible,” she continued. “Sadly, this is something that the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do—and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger.”
She wasn’t done: “And I have a message for Cadet Bone Spurs: If you cared about our military, you’d stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops, and millions of innocent civilians, in danger.”
Duckworth is not only a celebrated war hero; she’s also a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who is well-respected by members on both sides of the aisle. Also, while we are on the subject, it was Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri who proposed the idea of passing a bill to fund the military while the fight over immigration and Donald Trump’s dumbass wall continued, and it was GOP Senate leader and world-class asshole Sen. Mitch McConnell who shut it down.
But why would GOP members let the truth stop them when a collective lie appears to be more effective? According to The Hill, Republicans have blamed Democrats for playing “shutdown politics” since Friday, charging that Dems are willing to put undocumented immigrants above America’s military and their families.
“We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, aka Suckabee, said, The Hill reports. “When Democrats start paying our armed forces and first responders, we will reopen negotiations on immigration reform.”
Democrats have argued that Trump’s insistence on including his dumbass border wall along the Southern border of Mexico is what led to the shutdown.
“Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jell-o,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Saturday, The Hill reports. “It’s next to impossible. As soon as you take one step forward, the hard right forces the president three steps back.”
And what’s the lesson here? Never mess with Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Ever.
Watch below:
Read more at The Hill.