Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called President Donald Trump the “grifter-in-chief.”
Cooper asked, “Are you surprised by some of the Republicans pushing back on this fund?”
Blumenthal said, “Not really, Anderson, because this kind of graft and it really is graft on a scale that is unprecedented in our history. We had scandals with Harding and Grant and Nixon, but none of them involved the scale and scope, the audacity and arrogance of this graft.”
Cooper asked, “And you see this fund as part of graft, as part of corruption?”
Blumenthal said, “It is part of a through line of corruption. But it is also a kind of ignorance and utter disregard for what is affecting average Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. They are scrimping to put food on the table. They are paying gasoline prices that are multiples of what they did before, all because of a war that they think is misguided. And think about what could be supported. If we were using this $1.8 billion for health care or a measure that I’ve championed the Major Richard Starr Act, which basically provides veterans combat injured veterans with the full measure of disability benefits and retirement benefits that they need. So there are so many needs in this country, and Americans see them. And the president is proving to be, in effect, the grifter in chief.”
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