Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) blasted President Trump and Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson for assailing her patriotism, saying it was intended to distract from the president’s “failure to lead our nation.”
The Illinois senator, who is also being considered as a running mate for former Vice President Joe Biden (D), was the subject of attacks from both the Fox News host and Trump, who accused her of “hat[ing] America” after she said “we should listen to the argument” in favor of removing statues of George Washington.
Carlson called the senator a “coward” after she declined to come on his show without him first apologizing.
Trump later tweeted a video of Carlson’s segment and his reelection campaign accused the senator in a statement of “using her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize America’s founding.”
However, Duckworth contends that both Carlson and Trump are questioning her patriotism to distract people from Trump’s “failure” to lead the country and get him reelected.
“[W]hat I actually said isn’t the reason Mr. Carlson and Mr. Trump are questioning my patriotism, nor is it why they’re using the same racist insults against me that have been slung my way time and again in years past, though they have never worked on me,” Duckworth, a veteran who lost both legs serving in Iraq in 2004, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.
“They’re doing it because they’re desperate for America’s attention to be on anything other than Donald Trump’s failure to lead our nation, and because they think that Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another,” she added. “Their goal isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power, whatever the cost.”
Duckworth goes on to claim Trump and Carlson are attempting to divert attention from the coronavirus pandemic as well as reports that the Trump administration failed to act on intelligence that Russian officials offered bounties for the deaths of American troops in Afghanistan.
Duckworth closes the op-ed by quoting Washington’s farewell address, which warned against “the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
“[W] hile I would put on my old uniform and go to war all over again to protect the right of Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump to say offensive things on TV and Twitter, I will also spend every moment I can from now until November fighting to elect leaders who would rather do good for their country than do well for themselves,” she concludes.
The senator’s op-ed comes as the United States continues to grapple with the spread of the coronavirus, with states in the South and western parts of the country experiencing serious surges of infections.
Trump claimed over Fourth of July weekend again that the increase in cases was a result of an increase in testing, and called 99 percent of the infections “harmless.”