In a searing New York Times op-ed published Thursday night, Sen. Tammy Duckworth pushed back against statements by Donald Trump and right wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson calling her patriotism into question.
“Attacks from self-serving, insecure men who can’t tell the difference between true patriotism and hateful nationalism will never diminish my love for this country,” Duckworth wrote, “or my willingness to sacrifice for it so they don’t have to. These titanium legs don’t buckle.”
The beef started on Monday when Carlson took issue with an answer Duckworth gave when she was asked on CNN about taking down statues of slave-owning founding fathers like George Washington amid a push to tear down statues of confederate traitors. Duckworth didn’t call for such statues to be taken down, but she did suggest that the country should have “a national dialogue” about them.
On his Fox News show Monday night, Carlson took that statement out of context and launched into a screen in which he told his viewers, among other things, that she and other Democrats “hate America.” The next night, Carlson called Duckworth “a coward” because she wouldn’t go on his show to debate his insults. Donald Trump got in on the act on Wednesday, insulting her in extremely personal terms while implying that his left wing critics are traitors.
Duckworth, of course, is a U.S. army veteran who lost both of her legs in 2004 during one of her tours in the second Iraq war, a war Carlson supported — at least until it turned into a disaster — but didn’t volunteer to fight in. In fact, Duckworth sought a special dispensation that would allow her to continue serving in the Army even after losing her legs. She retired in 2014 after 22 years. Donald Trump meanwhile was exempted from the Vietnam war draft due to “bone spurs” in his heels. And Carlson has never served in the military either.
In her op-ed, Duckworth said that their attacks on her are a “desperate” attempt to distract Americans from “Donald Trump’s failure to lead our nation.” Trump and Carlson, Duckworth said, “think Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another. Their goal isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power, whatever the cost.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Wrap