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Sen. Tammy Duckworth: "An Illegal War of Choice" (April 2026)
Members of Congress warning on camera that a draft is coming for the Iran war.
'Draft-Dodging Coward': Tammy Duckworth Absolutely Tears Into Trump During Takedown Of The Iran War · Forbes Breaking News · uploaded 2026-04-15 · 17:29
Original: youtube.com/watch?v=NRvJUvSSGbU · IPFS QmYJSiQUXn6Ya3vppX2XszqX3Swzp6XHjhVpUTGeK8oM9s
What this video is evidence for
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel. She lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq and spent nearly a year recovering at Walter Reed. On the Senate floor in April 2026, a month and a half into the Iran war, she speaks "as a former soldier, who served in uniform the last time a President rashly sent our men and women into an unjustified war in the Middle East":
"I would never, ever wish another endless, needless, unjustified war like the one I served in on anybody else. I wouldn't wish it on the heroes who are packing up their rucks right now, knowing they may never touch American soil again. I wouldn't wish it on their families..."
She calls it an "illegal war of choice" and accuses the President of hiding "behind our heroes' courage" whenever he is asked to justify it: "Questioning why we're at war is [not] the same as questioning the skill and bravery of our troops." She adds that Trump keeps "risking our heroes' lives without even a concept of a plan for how to get them back home."
A note on this topic: the search for this page was for members of Congress warning on camera that a draft is coming. No such clip turned up. This is the strongest congressional voice found on what the war is already costing the troops who volunteered. For the draft itself, see the White House "options on the table" page and the automatic registration and Selective Service simulation pages.
Where this fits: see Forced Draft Law for the full explanation and sources.
Transcript
Machine transcription (apple-speechanalyzer) of the full 00:17:29. It can mishear names and words, so check exact wording against the video before quoting it.
Senator from Illinois. Thank you, Mr. President. I've come to the floor today as a United States Senator, of course, but also as a former soldier, who served in uniform the last time, a President rashly sent our men and women into an unjustified war in the Middle East. I spent nearly a year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, recovering from the injuries I earned in Iraq.
And every morning, as I struggled to sit up straight, every time I was rode into yet another surgery, I made sure to read the poster, I had next to my hospital bed. It was a framed copy of the Soldier's Creed. The words that those lucky enough to wear the army uniform live by. That same frame copy now hangs by my desk here in DC. And as I glanced at it this morning, I realized that there's perhaps no greater proof that Donald Trump never deigned to serve a day in his life than the mockery he makes of the soldier's creeds commitments every single day he has been in office.
The creed may be associated with the army, but the sentiments hold true for all of those who wear the uniform of this great nation. Its 13 lines tells us to be disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained, proficient, and to look out for those who look out for us, to look out for one another. Donald Trump is supposed to be our service members, commander in chief. The very, very least we should expect of him is to epitomize the standards that we ask our troops to swear by, to live by. The very, very least we should expect of the commander in chief, is to be as competent, disciplined, and professional, as the men and women whose very lives hinge on his capacity to lead on that competence and professionalism we expect to see in the White House.
The creed makes clear that our troops will never quit, that they will never leave a fallen comrade behind, yet cadet bone spurs is someone who will always quit. And every hour, he orders our service members to remain in unnecessary, growing danger, he is proving that Donald Trump does not give a damn about leaving a comrade or so many comrades behind. Every moment that Donald Trump leaves our heroes mired in the muck of this illegal war of choice in Iran. He is showing that he cares more about saving his own face than leading our troops. So I come to the floor today with a simple question.
Our military men and women go out there every day and do their jobs, no matter the risk, all on Donald Trump's orders. So, I asked you, Mr. President, why the hell can't you do your job, too? Why can't you live up to the same level of proficiency as our troops? Look, I'm proud of every mission I completed in Iraq, but I would never, ever wish another endless, needless, unjustified war like the one I served in on anybody else.
I wouldn't wish it on the heroes who are packing up their rocks right now, knowing they may never touch American soil again. I wouldn't wish it on their family. So being forced to spend their days, anxiously awaiting news from half a world away. And I wouldn't wish it on the American people who want their president to focus on bringing the costs down here at home, not starting new, expensive, taxpayer funded wars, continents away. But Trump either doesn't understand, Oh, he's somebody doesn't care about that.
From the moment this conflict began, the president has tried to shroud his incompetence behind the valor of our service members. When asked to justify his illegal actions, Donald Trump's tried to hide his cowardice behind our hero's courage. He's tried to act as if questioning why we're at war is the same as questioning the skill and bravery of our troops themselves. It isn't. And I'm here to call bullshit on the president of the United States.
Because I know that our military will always do the best job possible. When given a mission, our service members will say, yes, I will serve. They don't say, why me? They don't ask, will I be safe? No.
They dust off their boots, they show up, and they do what's asked of them, to the best of their ability, every single time, time after time, tour after tour, no matter the risk, no matter the sacrifice. They will always, always execute their orders to the maximum capability of their professionalism. And they are proud to do it. That isn't the problem. The problem here is that the person who's supposed to be leading them, spends more time talking about his Marie Antoinette ballroom than he does sitting in a situation room trying to get us out of this war.
The problem is the guy who claims to be making America great again looks at the word America and only sees the letters M and E in the middle of it. The problem is that the commander in chief not only has no idea what the end state is like for his war of choice, but properly, doesn't even know what the term end state means at all. The problem is that even in the last two weeks, the man who is in charge of our nation's nuclear codes has himself gone increasingly nuclear. He's not believing literal war with Iran is enough. He's now gone on to proverbial war with the Vatican, choosing to pick fights with the pope of our people.
The pope. Rather than try to engage in any semblance of Rio diplomacy to end the conflict in the Middle East. He's threatened to annihilate an entire civilization, terrifying people overseas and here at home, who are understandably worried about retaliatory strikes. And now, after one half assed day of so called negotiations with Iran, he's whipsawed to the next risky frontier in the region, a dangerous, complex partial military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, launching it at our nation's expense, with no justification, no explanation or any real plan of what comes next. His only plan seems to rely on the valor, the willingness to sacrifice the professionalism of our military men and women.
But let me tell you, that is not enough. They need a true commander. But Trump is Trump, and he is actively unabashedly telling us how to ignore what we are all seeing with our own eyes. He's trying to declare mission accomplished, despite his obvious failures at every single turn. He's declaring, and I quote, we did it.
We winning, after all signs, point to the opposite. We're still at war. Americans are still at risk. Civilians across the region are still dying for no reason that anyone can truly articulate. In reality, the only thing that Donald Trump has accomplished over the last six weeks is more chaos, because of his choices.
A new younger Ayotola is in charge, who seems even more radical than his father was. 13 American heroes have been killed, with hundreds more wounded. More goats to our parents are grieving their children. And more American families are struggling to afford the spiking gas prices. They're unsure, they can pay even more every time they go to the gas station, but they have to, because they need to get to work.
They've got to take their kids to school. They got to take their aging parents to the doctor. The farmers of Illinois, the farmers of this great nation have seen, at the time, that we should be planting their inputs costs skyrocket because of Donald Trump's war of choice. Look, war is always tragic, but when it's preventable, when it's unjustified, it's not just tragic. It's a travesty.
Trump wouldn't let himself be dragged in by the bone spurs to serve in Vietnam. So how dare he, how dare he drag our nation into a war of his choice today? But this draft dodger, this five time draft dodger, is too infatuated, with maximum pressure, to make a serious effort at even minimum diplomacy. Once again, the Trump foreign policy doctrine has proven reckless, senseless, and dangerous, a doctrine in which fact and fiction are one and the same, one in which our commander in chief seems to come to military decisions by virtue of temperate tantrums and announces them via tweet in the middle of the night. and one in which avarice outweighs advice every single time.
Look, unlike Trump, I actually know what it's like to leave your blood soaking into the desert sand a half a world away. So I know what it's like. I know what it's like, and what is at stake, for the troops this administration is sending into harm's way. We must safeguard their valor and their professionalism by doing our jobs. I can tell you this.
It's a whole lot easier to cover your eyes and order other Americans to sacrifice their children and sacrifice themselves if you don't have to do any of the sacrificing yourself. It's easier to send other people's children to fight in a war if you know your own children are cozy in a penthouse suite somewhere. It's easier to ignore the everyday realities of war from inside the hallowed holder house of the White House. We've got McDonald's being DoorDash to the Oval Office. But it's nearly impossible.
It's nearly impossible. If you've been actually outside the wire yourself. So, I've come to the floor today to keep true. I promise I first made over two decades ago. I ran for Congress, not because I wanted to be in Congress, not because I wanted to be a Congressman or a senator.
I ran for Congress to honor the men and women who carried me out of that bloody war zone. I made a promise. That when the drums of war started beating again, I would be in a position, to make sure that our elected officials fully consider the true cause of war, not just in terms of money, but in human lives, and in the sacrifices of the men and women who wear the colors of this great nation, That was the vow I made to the troops I deployed with, and to all of those who've served since I've hung up my uniform. I'm here today under this great capital dome to keep that most sacred oath, because right now, thousands of our troops are ready to do their jobs, even if it means laying down their lives. And it's tragic, it's disgusting to me, that even as they prepare to do their jobs, our president, and some members of this chamber, seems so eager to neglect their own.
So as those drums of war echo louder than they have ever in years, I am here to remind Donald Trump that he does not have the authority to unilaterally force us into war. He may never have read the Constitution, but I have. So let me direct his attention to article one, which makes clear that only Congress only Congress has the power to declare war. We are the ones tasked with deciding when and how Americans assented to combat. We are the ones charged with that most solemn duty.
Yet Trump is acting as if Article One simply doesn't exist, as if obeying the Constitution is optional. I said, our founding document is just a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper that he can crumble up and toss into the garbage can at will. This should not, must not be a partisan issue. No matter if you're struggling to pay rent, or if your name is plastered in fake gold on a building on Fifth Avenue, no one can ignore the Constitution, especially if you've sworn an oath to defend it, no matter if you're a Mar-Lago worker pulling down double shifts, or the president of the United States, no one is above the law. Look, I believe fully that there are certain solemn, urgent times when our military must be called upon to defend us.
There are certain moments when the threat in question is significant and imminent. Instances when military force is the most effective tool at hand, and that using it is necessary to protect America and her interests. The thing is, from what little information the Trump administration has shared publicly that he hasn't immediately contradicted, and sometimes the same sentence, this was not one of those times. But if the administration thinks that I'm wrong and there was imminent, reasonable, actual threat to America, then guess what? The floor is theirs.
Come to the Senate with just 20 minutes from the White House. It's not hard to find. It's even faster in your mortarcade, Mr. President. It's not hard to find us.
We're the building with a big dome on top. We're only a 20 minute walk. Trump knows where the Capitol building is. It's a spot he told the insurrection is to march towards on January 6th. So, if his team actually believes that war is unjustified, then they need to come to Congress and do their jobs.
Explain their case, giving the American people a say through their electorate representatives, the members who sit at every one of these desks in this chamber. They need to respect the American people enough to finally tell them why they're being forced to bear the cost of this conflict, both in dollars and cents and daughters and sons. They need to respect our service members enough to prove why war with Iran is worth more children growing up without their mom or dad. They need to make it clear that they've thought this through and well enough that they can actually articulate what an end state with this war of choice in Iran would even look like. Then, when their case has been made, when the debate here in Congress is completed, then the members of this chamber must vote.
It's our duty. Yes, it is our burden. It's the least we can do for those who are willing to sacrifice everything to safeguard this democracy. But if the Trump administration refuses to do that, if they refuse to adhere to the Constitution, well, then it begs their question. What are you hiding?
What are you hiding, Mr. President? We already know you're incompetent. What else are you hiding? Look, we've now been at this war of choice.
of Trump's choice for a month and a half, thousands are dead, grieving, wounded, suffering, only someone is inept and unfit, someone is callous and cruel, as Trump would see this as winning. Only a draft dodging coward would think that this is the right way to engage in a war. Only a man so unqualified to be commander in chief would be proud to keep on risking our heroes' lives without even a concept of a plan for how to get them back home without risking more graves at Arlington. We can't let this chaos continue unchecked. And so our troops continue to sacrifice whatever is asked of them.
We senators, we senators, need to do the absolute minimum required of us. That's why this week, I'm calling up my war powers resolution, demanding that the Trump administration finally end this illegal war, and to call for some actual public oversight and accountability on behalf of the American people. It'll come to the floor for a vote shortly. So to my Republican colleagues, you have a choice, a simple one, really. You can vote with me to end this conflict, and show that you actually care about putting America first, like you claim, or you can vote to put Trump's ego first, proving that when push comes to shove, you care more about protecting Trump's thin skin, than the Constitution that you swore to defend.
At this point, it's pretty clear. Donald J. Trump will always be more interested in looking out for his own self-interest rather than truly serving American interests. So my question is, if any of my Republican colleagues are actually brave enough to stand up and tell Donald J. Trump, the five time draft dodging coward, enough.
Thank you.
Last Updated: 2026-09-27