Tammy Duckworth slams Trump’s ‘despicable’ comments about military veterans

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Senator and Army National Guard veteran Tammy Duckworth has slammed Donald Trump, calling him “despicable” for his degrading comments about military veterans and for suggesting the highest civilian award is more prestigious than the Medal of Honor awarded to service members who have demonstrated “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity.”

Speaking yesterday on ABC ‘s This Week, the Illinois Democrat, who lost both legs in the Iraq War and now uses a wheelchair, said: “American voters have a chance to choose – do they want a five-time draft-dodger who denigrates military men and women and our veterans and calls us ‘suckers and losers’, who doesn’t want to have his picture taken with amputee veterans of various conflicts to be the next commander in chief?”

Duckworth was scathing in her response to a clip of Trump speaking to a group of Jewish Republicans at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday, where he reflected on awarding Miriam Adelson, a wealthy GOP donor who is the billionaire widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the Medal of Freedom – the highest award available for civilians.

Trump shockingly said the civilian award is “actually much better” than the Medal of Honor because those awarded with the military award are often “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”

“She gets it,” the former president continued, gesturing the Adelson, “and she’s a healthy beautiful woman – and they’re rated equal.”

Duckworth lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee in 2004 after the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by an Iraqi insurgent rocket-propelled grenade, making her the first American female double amputee from the Iraq War.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, she was awarded the Purple Heart – given to service members wounded or killed while serving.

Comparing Trump to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who served in the National Guard for over two decades, Duckworth said the Democrat ticket has been “leading on so many issues for veterans, especially burn pits.”

Burn pits were commonly used up to the mid-2010s in Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of waste collected on military bases, exposing service members to toxic fumes.

That is until Joe Biden signed the PACT Act bill into law in August 2022, meaning about 888,000 veterans and survivors have been able to receive disability benefits under the law. Biden’s son Beau died in 2015 from cancer which he is believed to have developed following his own exposure to burn pits.

“Those remarks are consistent with where he’s always been,” Duckworth said turning back to Trump.

“Frankly, he’s not fit to be commander in chief.”

Trump famously mocked John McCain for his war injuries, which left him physically unable to raise his arms above his head, after the late senator and veteran killed a Republican bill aiming to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. He also mocked McCain’s imprisonment as a PoW in Vietnam, saying: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”