Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rebuked former President Donald Trump on Sunday for his reported comments about a wounded veteran.
Last week, The Atlantic reported, in a profile of Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley, that Trump insulted Luis Avila – a veteran who lost a leg and suffered brain damage after an IED attack in Afghanistan – at Milley’s welcome ceremony in 2019.
Milley said Trump asked him why he brought Avila and said “no one wants to see that, the wounded.” Trump also said Avila must never appear in public again, according to Milley.
Buttigieg, a veteran himself, responded to Trump on Sunday in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
“These are the kind of people who deserve respect and a hell of a lot more than that from every American, and definitely from every American president,” Buttigieg said.
“The idea that an American president—the person to whom service members look as a commander-in-chief and the person who sets the tone for this entire country—could think that way or act that way or talk that way about anyone in uniform and certainly those who put their bodies on the line and sacrificed in ways that most Americans will never understand, and I guess wounded veterans make President Trump feel uncomfortable,” he added.
