Watch the video here.
Washington, D.C. — Last week, President Donald Trump came under fire after revealing in an interview with Axios that he did not confront Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent phone call, after learning that U.S. intelligence concluded that Russian military officials secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan. When pressed in the interview, President Trump said of the intelligence, that it was “an issue that many people said was fake news.” According to reports, President Trump has spoken with President Putin at least eight times since intelligence of the bounties first appeared in the President’s Daily Brief in February.
President Trump’s refusal to confront Vladimir Putin has sent shock waves across the U.S. national security apparatus and on Capitol Hill and has alarmed families of active military members, such as Jess Piper, who spoke out today in a new campaign by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. In the video, Piper says she worries about the safety of her son, who is on active duty in the Missouri National Guard.
“A foreign nation is targeting U.S. soldiers, and there has been nothing from the president,” she said. Piper, whose father, grandfather, and uncle were all service members, says that she fears the truth for many military families who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan in light of this abdication of duty by President Trump.
“It’s hard for a mom to stomach her son, or daughter or any relative going to serve under this administration. There is no leadership,” she said. “It’s horrifying for family members to have lost people in Afghanistan and now wonder if their sons or their husbands or their brothers were killed because of bounties and that the United States looked the other way.”
President Trump has a long history of failing to hold President Putin accountable on issues of national security, including election security funding. In the video, Piper calls out the danger President Trump poses to service members and the attempts by the Trump administration to obfuscate the truth about President Trump’s record on Russia.
“Trump seems to be Putin’s ally. And Putin is not an ally to our nation or to our servicemen,” she said. “The press secretary said that there is no greater advocate for the U.S. military than Trump. And I can think of no worse advocate. Trump is a disaster for our military. Trump has been a disaster for this country.”
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