President Donald Trump loves veterans, or at least that's what he would have us believe. “You're amazing people, great people,” he told the Retired American Warriors PAC last October. “Our veterans, in many cases, are being treated worse than illegal immigrants, people that come into our country illegally,” he said last September. “Honor their valor,” his foundation's website still insists.
Trump is certainly aware that no American politician can win office without appealing to veterans. But his commitment to this constituency has always been dubious. He received five deferments to avoid going to Vietnam. It took four months and heaps of negative press for him to make good on promised donations to veterans' advocacy groups. He attacked Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Gold Star parents, and ridiculed former prisoner of war John McCain, saying, “I like people who weren't captured.” Pundits warned that Trump was endangering the support of a critical group, but he brayed about his allegiance to the troops and pledged to fix the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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