The 2020 presidential race is continuing to heat up as President Donald Trump ups his antagonism of the basic norms associated with his position. In recent days, he went so far as to suggest that scrutiny of alleged war criminals is misguided, because their behavior is in line with what’s supposedly expected of U.S. service members, and Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana’s Mayor Pete Buttigieg blasted that idea in an appearance on the latest edition of ABC’s This Week.
He told host Martha Raddatz:
‘The idea that being sent to war turns you into a murderer is exactly the kind of thing that those of us who serve have been trying to beat back for more than a generation. For a president — especially a president who’s never served to say he’s going to come in and overrule that system of military justice undermines the very foundations legal and moral of this country. His idea that being sent to fight makes you automatically into some kind of war criminal is a slander against veterans that could only come from somebody who never served.’
Pete Buttigieg on Trump’s proposal to pardon some service members accused of war crimes: “His idea that being sent to fight makes you automatically into some kind of war criminal is a slander against veterans” https://t.co/LqbnX8uTU4 pic.twitter.com/ZeTQpvmKs4
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 26, 2019
Buttigieg is himself a veteran, having served in Afghanistan for seven months, so he has a personal stake in the issue.
The president had been reported to be considering pardoning an array of accused or convicted war criminals for Memorial Day, but even though that might not happen, he’s still considering it in cases like that of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who shot at civilians overseas possibly killing them and even personally murdered a teenage captive. Trump already got Gallagher out of solitary confinement in large part at the urging of the conservative media world, where figures like Fox’s Brian Kilmeade and Pete Hegseth have also fallen in line behind touting war crimes as supposedly just part of the job.
Trump can use his idea about the supposedly innately criminal nature of military service to guide foreign policy, carrying out some of his harshest ideas about the U.S. agenda with abandon. He’s the guy, remember, who suggested at one point during his rise that terrorists’ families should be executed and who domestically and more recently, has been reported to have urged border patrol to break the law and turn asylum seekers around because he’d supposedly have their back. Border patrol leadership had to come in after the president and remind members that they’d be held legally accountable for their actions on the job.
This weekend, Buttigieg also addressed other areas where the president’s egotistical incompetence has stemmed into problems for the United States, denouncing the president’s behavior towards North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, of which he shared:
‘When the president met with Kim, he was essentially handing North Korea something they needed which was legitimacy. And the way diplomacy works, the way deals work is you give someone something in return for something. It hasn’t worked at all.’
Pete Buttigieg criticizes Pres. Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un, saying it gave North Korea “legitimacy.”
“The way diplomacy works, the way deals work, is you give someone something in return for something… it hasn’t worked at all.” https://t.co/LqbnX8uTU4 pic.twitter.com/VlSIN7OUSR
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 26, 2019
Just this weekend, while overseas in Japan, Trump slammed Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and praised Kim in the very same tweet, offering a striking image and reminder of just where his priorities and allegiances lie heading into 2020.
Featured Image via screenshot