Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, speaking on the Senate floor about the partial government shutdown, said Saturday she would not accept a lecture about military funding from President Donald Trump, calling him “a five-deferment draft dodger.”
Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost both legs when the helicopter she was piloting was shot down, was responding to a tweet by Trump that said, “Democrats are holding our military hostage” in the shutdown.
She called it “the latest in a recent string of recent comments where he accuses Democrats like me for not caring about our military.”
“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 said. “Sadly, this is something 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.”
Duckworth has referred to Trump as “Cadet Bone Spurs” because he received a deferment from the military draft during the Vietnam War because of bone spurs in his heels. He received four college deferments as well.
Duckworth, who recently returned from a visit to South Korea and Japan, added that “I have a message for Cadet Bone Spurs: If you cared about our military, you’d stop baiting (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops and millions of innocent civilians in danger.”
She called for Republicans and Democrats to come to an agreement and end the shutdown. “Let’s stop blaming each other, and let’s get to work,” she said.
