Sen. Tammy Duckworth accused President Trump of having more concern about Confederate statues than he does about the coronavirus or other issues facing the country.
The Illinois Democrat said on Sunday that she believes politicians need to listen to those who are calling for statues of historical figures to be removed. However, she said that Trump has been spending too much time worrying about the issue when there are other crises to manage.
“We should start off by having a national dialogue on it at some point, but right now, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. And one of our countries that are opposed to us, Russia, has put a bounty on American troops’ heads. What really struck me about the speech at Mount Rushmore was that he spent more time worrying about honoring dead Confederates than he did talking about the lives of our 130,000 Americans who lost their lives to COVID-19, or by wanting Russia off of the bounty they’re putting on American’s heads,” she said.
“His priorities are all wrong here,” she added. “He should be talking about what we’re going to do to overcome this pandemic? What are we going to do to push Russia back? And instead, he had no time for that. He spent all his time talking about dead traitors.”
Duckworth said Trump’s remarks were especially distasteful because he made them while standing before Mount Rushmore, which is on land “stolen from the Native Americans.” She added that the United States needs to “listen to everybody” when it comes to deciding the fate of statues honoring historical figures such as President George Washington but that she doesn’t believe it should take priority over other issues.
“I’m more worried about the 130,000 who have lost their lives recently and the thousands and thousands of more Americans who are currently sick than I am about our historical past. We need to talk about what we’re doing to bring this country off the brink of chaos that it’s in,” she said.
Protesters have been gathering throughout the country to advocate for an end to police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes during an arrest. Some of the protests have devolved into riots in which participants have defaced or ripped down statues of historical figures. The protests have also been cited as a contributor to the recent uptick in coronavirus cases throughout the U.S.
