Veterans slam Trump as 'domestic enemy' for declaring fake emergency
A veterans group called Trump out for endangering the country and threatening democracy.
Veterans are blasting Trump for abusing power with his bogus declaration of a “national emergency,” and slamming his plan to take money intended to build housing for military families and waste it on a racist border wall.
“Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, to seize powers given to the Congress, by the Constitution, is a gross abuse of power,” said Iraq War veteran Jon Soltz, chair of veterans advocacy group VoteVets.
“As veterans, we swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Members of Congress took that same oath,” Soltz said. “It is now up to them to live up to it, and defend the Constitution from Donald Trump, a domestic enemy to the Constitution.”
Trump has been frustrated by Congress refusing to let him waste billions on a needless border wall he once promised would be paid for by Mexico (which has refused to do anything of the kind).
Since he can’t get his way through normal democratic channels, Trump has instead chosen to make a legally dubious declaration of a national emergency — even though he admitted in an unhinged press conference announcing the declaration that he “didn’t need to do this.”
His administration hopes to use funds already slated for military construction projects — which includes housing for military families and infrastructure improvements to military bases — in order to build his wall.
“After making hundreds of thousands of federal workers suffer (one-third of whom are veterans) during the Trump shutdown, Donald Trump will now punish our troops and military families, because he cannot get his vanity wall,” Soltz said.
“There is indeed now a crisis,” he added. “But it is not at the border. The crisis sits in the Oval Office. It is high time for Congress to deal with that crisis.”
Trump routinely disrespects our military by using service members and their families as political props for his own ends. This has included needlessly sending thousands of troops to the southern border, where many had nothing to do but shovel horse manure and were forced to spend the holiday season away from their families.
To distract from public opposition to his wall fiasco, Trump is once again demanding absurd, unnecessary sacrifices from our men and women in uniform and their families — and likely violating the Constitution to do it.
And veterans are refusing to stay silent while Trump inflicts more wounds on our warriors and our democracy.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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