Iraq War Vet Congressman Questions Trump’s Loyalty To America

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who served in the Iraq War, raised questions about Trump’s loyalty to the United States during an interview on CNN’s State Of The Union.

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Transcript:

Jake Tapper: Some criticism has been pretty extraordinary. I want you to look at this tweet from Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Quote, Republicans in Congress cannot continue to turn a blind eye towards the very real possibility that Vladimir Putin has compromised our commander in chief and turned him perhaps without his knowledge into a Russian asset. Do you agree with that?

Rep. Moulton: Well, I think the problem is we don’t know, Jake. And that’s what’s so embarrassing about the situation. I don’t know of a time in American history when an American commander in chief has gone into a one in one meeting with an adversary and refused to tell us about it or refuse to tell his own intelligence chiefs what he discussed. This raises an awful lot of questions about what Russia may have on trump and what Trump is trying to do with Putin.

Tapper: You think it’s possible that the president is a Russian asset with or without his knowledge?

Moulton: Well, I’m just saying I don’t know. The behavior I saw from the president on television, rather than standing up for our allies, rather than hammering Putin for the way he’s tried to influence our elections and undermine our democracy, and instead cozies up to the dictator, Russia is the greatest enemy of the United States for the last 65 years. The fact we have to question the integrity and loyalty of a commander in chief when it comes to dealing with Russia is a problem in and of itself.

This is why Trump can’t make this problem go away

Rep. Moulton put his finger on the heart of the problem. There is now a plurality of Americans who think that Donald Trump is a weak leader. Many of these same people are questioning his loyalty to the United States. Once a president is thought to be weak, there is no easy fix. Trump doesn’t have a magic tweet that can make people believe that he is strong.

The bigger problem is that Trump can’t fix his loyalty problem. Trump will be viewed forever as disloyal to the United States.

You can’t fix the perception of treason, which is why every time Trump tries, he only makes his situation worse.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association