Donald Trump's attacks on top military officer are 'outrageous,' Pete Buttigieg says

WASHINGTON – Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg slammed former President Donald Trump’s attack on the retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, Army Gen. Mark Milley, calling his comment “outrageous.”

Trump last week accused Milley of “dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” on his social media platform, Truth Social. The allegation was a reference to calls Milley made to his Chinese counterpart assuring him the U.S. had no intentions of launching an attack in 2021. Milley has defended those calls, saying he was fulfilling the duties of his office.

Trump continued: “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Buttigieg, who is also a veteran, said Trump’s comments on Milley were “just the latest in a pattern of outrageous attacks on the people who keep this country safe,” in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The secretary of the Department of Transportation also took aim at remarks Trump reportedly made about a wounded veteran at Milley’s welcome ceremony. At the ceremony, wounded Army captain Luis Avila, who suffered multiple injuries including losing a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan and two heart attacks, sang “God Bless America.”

After the ceremony, Trump asked Milley “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded,” The Atlantic reported.

Buttigieg on Sunday said "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.”

“The idea that an American president, the person to whom service members look as the commander in chief, 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 about those who put their bodies on the line and sacrificed in ways that most Americans will never understand,” Buttigieg continued.

“I guess wounded veterans make President Trump uncomfortable,” he added.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Buttigieg slams Trump comments on military officer, wounded veterans