Military veterans helped drag Donald Trump to power in 2016, and appeared in changing states like Ohio and Florida, as Trump promised to spend large sums on defense. Since then, they have stayed with him, even when Trump has repeatedly attacked revered military leaders.
But as Trump grapples with the scandal over his reported inaction after being informed of a Russian plot to pay rewards for the murder of U.S. troops, cracks begin to appear in the relationship, with a number of military figures lining up to condemn to the president.
Even before news of the Russian rewards emerged, Trump’s link to the military seemed to have been severed. Some veterans and members of the military were horrified by Trump’s promise to deploy active-duty military forces for anti-racism protests and rallies.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my life who does not attempt to unite the American people, nor does he even intend to,” said the General of the Navy and former Trump Secretary of Defense James Mattis in an extraordinary criticism of the President earlier in the year. June.
Instead, it tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. “
Since then, things have only gotten worse for Trump.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the Trump administration had ignored intelligence about a Russian plot to offer rewards to Afghan militants for killing US troops. Trump has called the report, aspects of which have been confirmed by other means, a hoax, and at the same time insisted that he was not informed about the Russian plan.
Both the Times and CNN reported the information was included in a daily intelligence briefing in February, although Trump is known to rarely read those briefings. The plot report and Trump’s response could be the straw that broke the glass when it comes to the military. Even Republicans were shocked by the allegations.
“I’m not really sure it absorbs a lot of this stuff,” Rep. Paul Cook, a Navy veteran who represents various military installations, told the Associated Press.
“I’m probably thinking about the polls.”
Cook, who is leaving Congress at the end of his current term, added: “I am not going to be an apologist for Trump. Trump is Trump. “
As Trump’s response has oscillated between the threat that he is not credible and that he is not aware of it, some veterans have expressed alarm at the latest explanation: to a president who is not receiving, or who is not reading, important information documents.
“I think it’s even worse if I didn’t know,” Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey, told NJ.com.
“That speaks of a much broader crisis. What are you doing to fulfill your role as commander in chief? How come we were informing the allies about this and our own president did not know? I have no theory on how that could happen. I can not understand it.
Sherrill added: “If you’re going to risk your life for the country, you want to have leadership that values your life and does everything you can to protect yourself,” he says. “That’s the deal. So yeah, it’s very personal to me.”
The sentiment was echoed by Erik Hendriks, whose son died in an attack in Afghanistan in April 2019. The attack has been linked to Russia’s reward effort, and Hendricks questioned beforehand what Trump and the military knew about the plot.
“When they register and leave, any soldier, a Marine, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, I am sure they want to believe that the government is 100% on their corner,” Hendriks told the Associated Press.
“And if any of this is true, how could a soldier really believe that? How could this government let a soldier patrol there knowing this is true?
Hendriks’ mother, Felicia Arculeo, and Shawn Gregoire, the mother of Michael Isaiah Nance, who was killed in the same attack, demanded an investigation into the Russian rewards plan and the Trump administration, as pressure mounts on the president to explain what happened. .
“I really want someone to get to the bottom of this,” Gregoire told CNBC. “Even if you were not informed, what is happening now?”
In reference to Trump, Gregoire asked, “What are you doing now, now that you know it?”
Trump’s immediate response has been to post a series of distressed messages on Twitter, where, despite initially claiming that he received no intelligence about the Russian plot, he has since tried to dismiss the concept as a hoax.
The administration has yet to announce actions against Russia, which Trump has treated favorably since his election, but the issue is unlikely to go away. On Wednesday, Senator Bob Menéndez, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed sanctions on Vladimir Putin and other officials for offering rewards for killing US troops.
Historically, military members and veterans tend to favor Republican candidates, and Trump’s relationship with the military has so far endured his attacks on military families, and the poison Trump has directed at John McCain, even after death. from the senator.
That support continued in 2018, even as voters flocked to Democrats, when Trump’s Republican Party still won 58% of the military vote, but with just four months to go, Trump found himself immediately attacked by the scandal. Russian.
The Lincoln Project, a group of influential anti-Trump Republicans who plan to spend large sums of money on advertising against the President during the election campaign, quickly capitalized on Trump’s handling of the alleged bounty plot on Saturday.
“Putin pays Taliban cash to kill our men and women in uniform, and Trump is silent, weak, controlled,” says the ad.
“When Trump tells you he supports the troops, he is right, but not our troops.”
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