Donald Trump doesn’t really care about the military, and he openly demonstrated that during an interview with Fox News by declaring that he doesn’t care “what the military says.”
On top of saying he may not accept the results of the 2020 Election if he loses and telling obvious lies abut the coronavirus pandemic, Trump also defended the Confederate flag, which the Pentagon recently barred from being displayed on military bases.
As part of that, Trump also threatened to veto overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation directing the military to rename bases named after Confederate generals.
The legislation — a major defense funding bill — gives the Pentagon a limited time period to rename the bases, including Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, Fort Robert E. Lee, and Fort Hood, all of which were named after racist traitors who led the killing of Americans in defense of slavery during the Civil War.
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By vetoing the bill, Trump would be denying funding to the military he claims to love.
“You’re going to veto that?” Chris Wallace asked.
“I did more for the military than any president!” Trump falsely claimed in response.
“But you’re going to veto this bill?” Wallace pressed.
“I think that Ft. Bragg, Ft. Robert E. Lee — all of these forts that have been named that way for a long time — decades and decades,” Trump said before being cut off by Wallace.
“But the military says they are for this,” Wallace noted.
Indeed, military brass — including Trump’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley — support renaming the bases because the names sow division among the ranks.
And that’s when Trump revealed his true feelings about the military.
“Excuse me,” Trump rudely replied. “I don’t care what the military says. I’m supposed to make the decision. Ft. Bragg is a big deal. We won two world wars. Nobody even knows Gen. Bragg.”
Bragg was a slave owner in Louisiana prior to the Civil War that ended slavery. He was also on the losing side of the war. There’s no reason an American military installation should have been named for him in the first place and it’s time to rectify that mistake.
But Trump made a mockery of the issue.
“What are we going to name it,” Trump said. “You going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton? What are you going to name it, Chris? Tell me what you’re going to name it.”
Here’s the video:
Well, we could name one of the bases after Cook Third Class Doris Miller, who bravely manned an anti-aircraft gun on the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Miller was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions and he would be killed at the Battle of Makin in 1943. Seeing as how Miller was from Texas, renaming Fort Hood after him would be an appropriate start. But that apparently won’t happen because Trump doesn’t care what the military thinks. Clearly, he doesn’t care about their sacrifices either.
Featured image via Flickr/White House, under Creative Commons license 2.0
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