Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has weighed in on Donald Trump’s stunning remarks about veterans and wounded service members.
Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran, said Thursday on MSNBC that it was “unthinkable” for a former president to express “that kind of disrespect for somebody who puts their life on the line.”
According to a recent profile of Army Gen. Mark Milley in The Atlantic, Trump once asked the now-former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff why he had invited a wounded Army captain to sing “God Bless America” at an event.
“Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded,” Trump reportedly said in 2019, directing Milley not to invite the man to future public gatherings.
On MSNBC, Buttigieg summed up his thoughts on the matter:
To me, it comes down to this: If being around an injured or wounded or disabled veteran makes you uncomfortable, it should make you uncomfortable in the direction of wanting to be more like them.
It should make you uncomfortable in the direction of asking whether you have done enough to make your life and your community and your country worthy of the price that was paid in blood to keep that country safe.
I think that’s something that all of us, regardless of political persuasion, ought to be able to come together around.
In 2020, The Atlantic reported that Trump had called Americans who died at war “losers” and “suckers.”
His former chief of staff John Kelly told CNN on Monday that Trump had indeed made various critical remarks about veterans, and that he had expressed disdain for injured and deceased service members.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said in an interview this week that he didn’t “have any doubt that what John Kelly said was true.”
Trump’s campaign has rejected Kelly’s comments, telling multiple media outlets that “John Kelly has totally clowned himself with these debunked stories he’s made up because he didn’t serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff.”
Listen to Buttigieg’s remarks to MSNBC below:
