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Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, in 2015, when I heard then-candidate Donald Trump denigrate the service of my friend, the late Senator John McCain, suggesting that he was a loser and that his status as a POW was somehow cause for shame or embarrassment, I was rock-solid certain that the America I knew and loved would never allow such a man to occupy the office of the President. I was wrong.

The McCain attack began a slow reveal of the unsurprising moral bankruptcy of a man and the surprising willingness of Republican leadership to tolerate that moral void. The reveal reached a new level last week with Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting--significantly verified by other reporters--that President Trump as Commander in Chief still denigrates the service of military members, calling them ``suckers'' and ``losers.''

The Trump campaign protested loudly against the charge, but in the same instant put out a social media message ridiculing Joe Biden as he visited the grave of his son Beau, an Iraq war veteran, after church last Sunday.

As a Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the father of a U.S. marine, I find President Trump's attack on our military infuriating. In an era when his countrymen were risking their lives in Southeast Asia, the President dodged service with a timely and miraculously short-lived diagnosis of bone spurs. He bragged that his own personal Vietnam was trying to avoid sexually transmitted diseases at home while others were trying to avoid bullets, landmines, and torture in Vietnam. The selfish young man who avoided service and then equated the ultimate sacrifices of others with his sex life has now ascended into the world's most powerful office holding on to those same immature views.

It is not just about the President's words and attitude. Solid intelligence suggests that Russia has paid bounties for the killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The President and his team have spent time trying to deny the news to the American public with ridiculous efforts to pretend that the President was never even briefed about the matter. The President still refuses to acknowledge the gravity of the threat or hold Russia to account, but, of course, he has described Vladimir Putin as ``a better leader than Obama'' and as a ``friend.'' He must think: Why risk that friendship for suckers?

After watching this President for years, I conclude that the attack on the military is part of a broader hostility to the notion of serving others. The President stiffs charities, disrespects Federal employees, denigrates teachers, and undercuts programs like public service loan forgiveness. He treats the office as a personal piggy bank, filling staff positions with family members and cronies, steering business toward his resorts, making his main domestic priority a tax bill that dramatically benefited his own pocketbook. The death, economic depression, deficits and social division that he has caused through his chaos hardly trouble his conscience because he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has used the office to enrich himself.

Is this the exemplar that we want for our country? President Trump may be unique among American Presidents in that no one holds him up as an example for America's children. No parent or teacher or minister or youth mentor who I know tells children to act like him or talk like him or treat people like he does. Even his supporters, professing support for his nominees and tax plan, have an instinctive understanding that he is not an example we would want our young people to emulate.

Of all the critical issues on the ballot for America in November, the most important is the most elemental. Is America a place where the commitment to serving others matters? Are we our brother's keeper? Do we want our young to join the military or enter the Peace Corps or teach in our public schools? Is service just for suckers or is it the essence of American patriotism?

Growing up, I was certain that I knew the answer to that question. I am less certain today, but I am infinitely more determined.

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Mr. KAINE. I yield.

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