Fox & Friends lies about Bernie Sanders’ record on veteran care
Written by Zachary Pleat
Published
Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade falsely accused Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) of making veterans’ care worse when he chaired the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. In fact, during that time Sanders was one of the primary co-sponsors of the bipartisan 2014 VA reform bill, which aimed to improve care for veterans and which President Donald Trump often falsely takes credit for.
Fox & Friends hosted Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on Thursday and he explained why he reacted so negatively to a Sanders tweet in which the senator wrote, “If you can’t afford to take care of your veterans, then don’t go to war.” (Two days prior, Sanders had shared video from one of his recent campaign events where a veteran said he was contemplating killing himself because of medical debt.) After Crenshaw suggested that Sanders was “pandering to veterans” and accused him of “trying to make people angry” with his “dishonest way” of doing politics, Kilmeade noted that Sanders had served as chairman of a congressional committee overseeing the VA and that he had “made it worse” during the 2014 VA scandal.
Kilmeade is lying. Months before the inspector general report detailing systemic problems at the VA was released, Sanders had already introduced a bill that would have funded dozens of new VA health clinics and expanded some physical and mental health benefits for some veterans and their families. Senate Republicans blocked that bill.
But Sanders was still instrumental in passing another bill, the bipartisan Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 after he struck a deal with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that he and Republicans deserve the sole credit for a part of the law that was signed in 2014. In fact, he’s even repeated this lie to Kilmeade on Fox & Friends.
Citation From the September 19 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Bernie Sanders sent out a tweet that said, "If you can't afford to care of your veterans, then don't go to war." You had a response to that. You said, "Watching Bernie pander to different groups to get their vote has always disgusted me, but now it's personal. I didn't go to war so that you would take care of me, Bernie. I went because I wanted to serve and our country needed it." Why did you feel the need to respond?
REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): On a deeper level, I have always disliked it when politicians start pandering to veterans and telling us how bad we have it, and that if we just vote for them that they'll fix all of our problems. That's just not true. It also gets to a really false choice, which is, why we went to war in the first place. I went there because our country needed it. We went there because it was in the best interest of our country. I wasn't thinking down the road about being taken care of. Now, of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of our veterans. But this is also another, I think, falsehood that Bernie is spreading. All right, this is a bipartisan issue, taking care of our veterans and improving the VA We spend far more on the VA than we have in the past. Every single year, we as a delegation, as a Congress, we look for ways to improve veteran care. And he knows that. But what he's doing is is he's trying to rile people up. He's trying to make people angry. He's trying to tell victims that -- or trying to tell veterans that they are victims, and that only he can take care of them. I just think that's such a dishonest way to do politics, and I think he should be called out for it.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Yeah, and let's just add, too, he was chairman of a committee that was overseeing the VA when it was at its worst and everything was exposed. So he had a chance to run things, and he made it worse. Dan Crenshaw, thanks so much.
CRENSHAW: That's a great point. Thank you.