Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) was furious that Democrats claimed the mantle of patriotism during this week's convention.
Delegates wore red-white-and-blue attire and attendees waved flags and chanted "U-S-A" as speakers touted their patriotism and service to the nation, but the Florida Republican insisted to CNN's Dana Bash that was all for show and that Donald Trump's party loved their country more.
"I know many of those veterans that were on stage and serve with them," Waltz said, "and what I found most unfortunate was not a single one of them said the word 'Afghanistan' or said the names of the 13 Gold Star families when this week, it's coming Monday, is the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, and I think the foreign policy debacle that was the original sin of seeing chaos around the world. In fact, Kamala Harris looked at you dead in the eye and said she was proud of the decision. She puffed up her chest and said she was comfortable with it. As the last person in the room and we saw over 800 Marines left behind, 150,000 of our allies that stood and fought with us and Putin and Xi and the Ayatollah all got the message that we will abandon our allies from that. This week three years ago, not a single mention yet. They're going to mention Trump and cheerlead and wave their flags so let's talk about actual action versus rhetoric, and I'll push back on that all day long."
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Bash agreed that it was powerful when Gold Star families took the stage at the Republican National Convention last month, but she fact-checked Waltz's characterization of the withdrawal from Afghanistan," Bash said.
Waltz interrupted, saying that was a conditional agreement, and he said that Trump called off that deal when his advisers informed him the Taliban had not lived up to its terms, and Bash tried to bait him into criticizing the Republican nominee by asking whether he wished Trump would hammer those same points instead of lobbing insults.
"Well, look, President Trump, when he feels hit, he's going to hit back," Waltz said. "I mean, that's just him, but what else has he talked about? He's talked about releasing American, cleaner American energy, and oil and gas which would not only solve our domestic economic issues, it would dry up Iran's bank account and Russia's, as well. If we want to talk about both foreign policy and domestic policy actual solutions are energy policy and Kamala's obsession with the Green New Deal has put us both in this economic and foreign policy bind."
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