U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, put jokes aside when she appeared on the political satire The Daily Show this week as she criticized the Trump administration’s treatment of veterans.
The Trump administration last month sent out a memo that revealed plans for a reorganization of the Department of Veterans Affairs which included cutting more than 80,000 jobs.
Duckworth, who herself is a veteran who served in the Iraq War, said the cuts would impact health care for veterans and their families.
“We were just turning the corner. We were actually reducing the number of homeless veterans. We were just adding more veterans, getting more benefits,” Duckworth told host Ronny Chieng.
She also said veterans who voted for Trump are seeing their benefits reduced by the federal cuts.
“I think what they bought was this rhetoric from him that he wants to make America great, strong and powerful, and yet all he’s done is made us weaker, sicker and less secure,” she said.
According to AP Votecast, which surveyed more than 120,000 voters nationwide, nearly 6 in 10 veterans voted for Trump last November.
Duckworth also said she senses the sentiment among veterans who voted for Trump is changing because of his attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.
She said Trump is “basically kissing” Putin’s ring.
“These are people who spent their entire military careers getting ready to oppose Russia,” Duckworth said. “And now they see the commander-in-chief basically doing whatever Putin wants him to do.”
She also said younger generations in higher ranks of the military are shifting veteran sentiments on Trump. She said the military cannot do its job without diversity.
“We also have people in charge of the military now, the millennial generation, who have only ever served equally without ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” she said. “They know that we’ve always served equally and we can’t go to war without each other.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was a law implemented by the Clinton administration in 1993, which allowed LGBTQ individuals to serve in the military as long as they kept their sexual identity under wraps. The policy was repealed in 2011.
Duckworth also criticized her Republican counterparts in Congress, saying Republicans who were willing to stand up to Trump were the ones from his first term.
“The ones that are there are becoming invertebrates. They’ve lost their backbones, and they’re hiding in their shells,” Duckworth said. “They just roll over for this president.”
She said current Republican members of Congress are more concerned with reelection.
“At a certain point, you need to say, ‘You know what? Come at me. Go ahead and primary me. My country’s more important than this job,’” she said.
Isabela Nieto covers Illinois state politics and government for WBEZ.