“Trump is a desperate, scared man,” writes U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), the retired astronaut and Navy veteran who flew combat missions as a naval aviator during the Gulf War — and later piloted the Space Shuttle.
“He’s scared because he knows that he needs Arizona if he’s going to have any chance at taking back the White House, and he needs Kari Lake to have his Senate Majority.”
Kelly is knocking Trump in support of Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the Congressman and Iraq war veteran who’s running against Lake for the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), a one-term senator who opted not to seek re-election.
In a campaign email sent through Gallego’s organization, Kelly says he “knows what it’s like to have Trump call you out on stage” and defends his “friend” Gallego, whom Trump has called “weak” and a “loser” — two of the former President’s most oft-used putdowns.
Kelly defends Gallego against Trump’s maligning characterization, asserting that, in Gallego’s case, Trump’s name-calling misses the mark by a wide margin.
“Ruben’s unit did some of the hardest fighting of the entire Iraq War,” Kelly writes. “They suffered some of the heaviest casualties. Ruben lost some of his best friends over there. He served our country and that deserves respect, no matter what party you belong to.”
[Trump has faced criticism — even from Republicans — for allegedly disrespecting military service and veterans, including his famous disparagement of the service of one of Arizona’s most revered war veterans, the late Senator John McCain. McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam during his military service to America; Trump said of McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”]
Asking for donations to Gallego’s campaign, Kelly writes that as a result of Trump’s two trips this month to Arizona — a critical swing state in November’s election for the Oval Office and the Senate — “Ruben’s getting pummeled right now by the MAGA Right after Trump’s attacks.”
Below is the MAGA adherent Lake demonstrating what Kelly means and calling Gallego a “radical.”
Ruben Gallego wants to destroy Senator @KyrstenSinema’s legacy by getting rid of the filibuster to advance his radical political agenda.
He would OBLITERATE two centuries of political precedent to enact one-party rule.
I will PROTECT the filibuster. pic.twitter.com/xhgRn92H6G
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) September 17, 2024