Crenshaw takes aim at Duckworth’s patriotism, accuses her of supporting the ‘destruction of America’

Freshman GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw (Texas) took aim at Sen. Tammy Duckworth Wednesday, questioning the Illinois Democrat’s patriotism after she suggested that there should be a “national dialogue” about whether to remove statues and monuments of the founding fathers.

Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, was discussing voter outreach to veterans during a Trump campaign “MAGA meetup” event on Thursday when he took a swing at Duckworth, a combat veteran who lost both her legs serving in Iraq, accusing her of supporting the “destruction of America,” The Washington Post first reported. 

“I think a general message that the left stands for the destruction of America and the right doesn’t probably works pretty well with veterans, even liberal ones, because even liberal veterans probably don’t agree with that, unless you’re Tammy Duckworth,” he said.  

Crenshaw’s remarks echo comments made by the Trump campaign, which released a statement alleging that Duckworth is “using her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize America’s founding.”

President Trump also recently retweeted a clip of Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasting the Illinois senator for her comments, accusing her of being a “moron,” “silly,” and “unimpressive.” He later called her a coward for opting not to appear on his show. 

Duckworth hit back at Carlson for questioning her patriotism in an op-ed published in The New York Times, arguing that he took her remarks out of context and launched unwarranted attacks.

She also slammed Trump for the allegations launched against her, alleging people questioning her devotion to her country are attempting to distract the president’s “failure” to lead during the pandemic.

“Setting aside the fact that the right wing’s right to lie about me is one of the rights I fought to defend, let me be clear: I don’t want George Washington’s statue to be pulled down any more than I want the Purple Heart that he established to be ripped off my chest. I never said that I did,” she wrote. 

“But while I would risk my own safety to protect a statue of his from harm, I’ll fight to my last breath to defend every American’s freedom to have his or her own opinion about Washington’s flawed history. What some on the other side don’t seem to understand is that we can honor our founders while acknowledging their serious faults, including the undeniable fact that many of them enslaved Black Americans.”

The news comes as calls to remove statues of a number of historical figures including Confederate generals and slave owners have become widespread following nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. 

Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed in police custody at the end of May.

Critics argue that removing the statues is an attempt to whitewash history, and many say that removing monuments, statues and memorials of the Founding Fathers takes things too far. 

GOP lawmakers have been highly vocal in their opposition to protesters tearing down and vandalizing statues of controversial figures. 

Crenshaw told the Post that he believes going after Duckworth for her policies is fair game. 

“Calling for a ‘national dialogue’ to tear down statues of our Founders is certainly worthy of criticism, and can be reasonably described as the ideological destruction of our country,” Crenshaw said in the statement to The Washington Post.

Duckworth previously came to Crenshaw’s defense after “Saturday Night Live” took aim at the veteran, who lost an eye in duty, tweeting in 2018 that: “No one should ever mock a Veteran for the wounds they received while defending our great nation, regardless of political party or what you think of their politics,” and calling on comedian Pete Davidson to apologize. 

“I was insulted because of my appearance,” he told the paper. “She is being criticized for her political position and only her political position.”