Marine vet Seth Moulton walks out of State of Union, calls President Trump ‘draft dodger’
Blasting President Donald Trump as “a draft dodger” and taking him to task for mocking veterans and soldiers, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran, walked out of Tuesday night’s State of the Union address in protest.
“I left the #SOTU after Trump — a draft dodger who has mocked Sen. John McCain, Gold Star families, and soldiers with traumatic brain injury — started talking about the good he has done for our military.”
I left the #SOTU after Trump—a draft dodger who has mocked Sen. John McCain, Gold Star families, and soldiers with traumatic brain injury—started talking about the good he has done for our military.
— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) February 5, 2020
Fairly early in the speech before both houses of Congress, Trump, who touted a booming stock market, trade deals and job growth, said “our military is completely rebuilt" with “record-breaking” investment of $2.2 trillion and increased support for veterans.
Trump said U.S. forces were stronger than any other nation’s, and it was “not even close.”
Trump added that his administration had brought the nation greater respect and admiration around the globe.
But Trump, who avoided serving in Vietnam a handful of times, including once for bone spurs, has long come under fire for mocking McCain in 2015 by saying the Navy pilot “was not a hero.” McCain was captured and tortured for years after his plane was shot down in Vietnam, but Trump said he liked “people who weren’t captured.”
Trump has also attacked veterans and Gold Star families when they’ve not supported him, including Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who spoke out against Trump’s divisive rhetoric at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Their son, Capt. Humayun Khan, died in Iraq in 2004 after engaging a suicide bomber.
Newsweek reported that more than five dozen troops are being treated for traumatic brain injuries sustained during the missile strike that killed Iranian military and intelligence commander Qassem Soleimani.
“I don’t consider them very serious injuries, relative to other injuries that I’ve seen,” the president has said, describing the impact as “headaches.”