Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger launched a scathing Twitter rant denigrating Donald Trump as a ‘coward’ and ‘unfit for office’ following a report that the president called dead war heroes and veterans ‘losers and suckers’.
Sullenberger rose to fame for his ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009.
The former Air Force pilot and captain, who retired as a commercial pilot in 2010, is now using his voice to denounce Trump’s time in office.
‘I am a veteran. I volunteered for military service during wartime. So did my father. His generation saved the world from fascism,’ Sully tweeted Friday.
‘For the first time in American history, a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country,’ he added.
His Twitter thread came one day after The Atlantic published their damning report on Trump’s disparaging comments on veterans and soldiers.
Sullenberger stressed that Trump is not fit to hold office and urged his more than 120,000 followers to vote against him in the upcoming election.
‘While I am not surprised, I am disgusted by the current occupant of the Oval Office. He has repeatedly and consistently shown himself to be completely unfit for and to have no respect for the office he holds,’ Sullenberger said in his scathing Twitter thread.
‘He cannot understand selflessness because he is selfish. He cannot conceive of courage because he is a coward. He cannot feel duty because he is disloyal.
‘We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out,’ he added with a link to The Atlantic story.
The shocking article released late Thursday revealed Trump reportedly called US soldiers injured or killed in war ‘losers’ and questioned the country’s respect for them.
The report cites four unnamed people with first hand knowledge of Trump’s comments.
Trump canceled a visit to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Parks in 2018 because it was raining and sources said he didn’t want to go to ruin his hair and because he didn’t see why he should honor dead soldiers.
‘Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,’ the magazine quoted Trump as saying.
At the time it was reported that the trip was canceled because rain made it impossible for his helicopter to travel and the Secret Service could not drive him to the cemetery.
The report also said he referred to the more than 1,800 marines who died at Belleau Wood on France as ‘suckers’ for getting killed.
Trump also allegedly disparaged the military service of the late former president George H. W. Bush and objected to having wounded veterans be involved in a military parade.
Trump denied the story in a press conference Friday.
‘It was a totally fake story, and that was confirmed by many people that were actually there,’ he said.
‘It was a terrible thing that somebody could say the kind of things – especially to me because I have done more for the military than almost anybody else,’ the president added.
But the alleged comments had already sparked fury among some military members and sparked the Twitter hashtag #veteransagainstTrump.
Sullenberger has already voiced his support for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, joining him at a Nevada caucus rally earlier this year and endorsing his 2020 run.