The Vice-President hit a new low in pathetic cowardice this afternoon when he tweeted that “Watching Tammy Duckworth obsessively interrupt Marco Rubio during this hearing is like watching Forest [sic] Gump argue with Isaac Newton.”
War hero Sen. Tammy Duckworth was questioning the Secretary of State over allegations that the Trump administration had forewarned the oil companies but not Congress about his plan to kidnap Nicolas Maduro and hold the country of Venezuela hostage for its oil revenues.
But this, apparently, angered the Vice-President, who referenced an autistic character from the famous film Forrest — two R’s, Vance! — Gump in a very backhanded but obvious attempt to call her the right-wing’s favorite new word: “retarded,” which has been used by Trump in his attacks on Democrats.
Sen. Duckworth fired back and called out Vance and the entire Trump administration for putting American lives at risk so that Trump and his oil oligarch cronies could make out like bandits:
“Forrest Gump ran toward danger in Vietnam. Your boss ran to his podiatrist crying bone spurs.”
“Petty insults at the expense of people with disabilities won’t change the fact that you’re risking troops’ lives to boost Chevron’s stock price. It’s my job to hold you accountable.”
At least one person in that room is interested in actually doing their job.
It is beyond infuriating to watch our supposed leaders insult our war heroes for standing up for the interests of the American people — and humiliating for Vance to not even have the courage to come out and say it to her face, like a little schoolkid trying to stay out of trouble.
What a pathetic excuse of a man to say that to a woman who lost both her legs in service to her country.
‘Sickening’: Biden defends Duckworth after Trump camp, Tucker Carlson question her patriotism
The former VP said the attacks demonstrate the “depravity of what’s going on in the White House right now.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth arrives for a briefing on Capitol Hill on March, 12, 2020.Carolyn Kaster / AP file
By Lauren Egan and Marianna Sotomayor
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump on Tuesday for attacking Sen. Tammy Duckworth — a Purple Heart recipient who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq — as unpatriotic.
Speaking at a virtual fundraiser that Duckworth also attended, Biden said that the comments were “disgusting, sickening” and demonstrated the “depravity of what’s going on in the White House right now.”
“While in fact (Trump is) coddling Putin — Putin carries him around like a puppy in one of those little puppy cages. While that’s going on he attacks, he attacks the senator from Illinois who is a literal hero, combat veteran, lost both legs fighting for her country, and he says she’s not a patriot. Folks we cannot let this stand,” Biden said.
The attacks against Duckworth began on Sunday after the Democratic lawmaker from Illinois was asked in an interview on CNN whether statues of George Washington should be removed because he owned slaves. Duckworth said she thought there should be a “national dialogue” on the issue.
Sen. Duckworth: Trump ‘continues to put Russia’s interests above the well being of American troops’
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Duckworth’s response drew criticism from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who went on his show and called her “a deeply silly and unimpressive person” and said that Duckworth and other Democratic leaders “actually hate America.”
“Can you really lead a country that you hate?” Carlson continued, noting that Duckworth was being considered as a possible Biden running mate.
Trump shared a video on Twitter of Carlson’s segment attacking Duckworth and his campaign issued a statement saying that “Duckworth is now using her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize America’s founding.”
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Duckworth shot back at Carlson after his segment aired, tweeting “Does @TuckerCarlson want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?”
Duckworth lost both of her legs during the Iraq War in 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the helicopter she was co-piloting.
During the virtual fundraiser Tuesday evening, Duckworth also spoke to attendees, criticizing Trump.
“Instead of trying to bring our country back together, he spent his time defending dead Confederates who took up arms against this nation and engaging in xenophobic and racist language geared towards many Americans, including the Asian American and Pacific Islander community,” Duckworth said.
Tammy Duckworth rips Trump over remarks about medal-winning soldiers
“Donald Trump is despicable,” the Illinois senator said of the GOP candidate.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) speaks with reporters at the Capitol on Aug. 1, 2024. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs fighting in the Iraq War, on Sunday called Republican nominee Donald Trump “despicable” for comments Thursday about soldiers honored for their actions in combat.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” the Illinois Democrat said: “Donald Trump is despicable. He doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief. And certainly those remarks are consistent with where he’s always been. He thinks that we’re suckers and losers.”
On Thursday, when addressing megadonor Miriam Adelson about the Presidential Medal of Freedom he had given her in 2018, Trump said: “It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version. It’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor — that’s soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
The former president, in calling those two awards basically equivalent, added about Adelson: “She gets it and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal.”
Addressing ABC host Martha Raddatz, Duckworth said American voters will have to decide: “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 or are you going to have Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who care deeply about veterans?”
In discussing Walz’s military record, Duckworth said she had no issues with how the Minnesota governor has characterized his service and blasted Trump and his allies for their criticisms.
“It’s despicable what Republicans are doing,” she told Raddatz, “the same party that thinks that Donald Trump, who dodged a draft five times, who thinks veterans are suckers and losers, that’s who they think is better than someone who served 24 years in uniform.”
Duckworth, the first female double amputee to serve in the Senate, is a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel whose Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by Iraqi insurgents on Nov. 12, 2004. She wrote in “Every Day is a Gift,” her 2021 memoir: “A rocket-propelled grenade blew through the plexiglass ‘chin bubble’ window at my feet and detonated in a violent fireball right in my lap.”
The senator is not a recipient of the Medal of Honor, but a total of 3,538 have been awarded since the Civil War, including to Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), Francis Warren (R-Wyo.) and four others who went on to serve in the Senate.
Trump awarded Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2018, along with football greats Alan Page and Roger Staubach and then-Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). He also presented three posthumous awards that day, to Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.Filed Under:
