Donald Trump’s track record with veterans is shaky. He’s been creative with the truth when it comes to honoring his $6 million commitment to veterans charities, he’s threatened to push veterans off their benefits and on to Medicare, and he’s probably the only person willing to say John McCain’s Vietnam service was less than heroic.
But when it comes to vocal opposition to Trump from veterans, the loudest voices (and the most money) have their source in Hillary Clinton, not organic dissatisfaction.
Last week, the Daily Beast revealed that the Clinton campaign had coordinated with veterans willing to publicly protest Trump outside the Trump Tower in New York. The spokesman for the veterans, Alan McCoy, a former Marine and Clinton supporter, at first denied that Clinton’s team was involved, but the Clinton team was quick to admit to providing “logistical support” and coordinating the first conference calls that launched the event.
Of course, to discern that the event was Clinton-organized you could have just looked at some of the signs—and the fact that the “grassroots” protest drew only around 20 people.
A statement from veterans calling on Trump to “show respect” to veterans charities was also, it turns out, a Clinton campaign side project. The Clinton campaign, which helped release the statement, also recruited the signers, including prominent Democratic legislators Rep. Ruben Gallego and Rep. Seth Moulton.
The protest and the statement were both supposed to be part of larger Clinton communications roll out, attacking Trump in key swing states where veteran populations are high. The plan was supposed to include high-profile events in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida and Colorado, with veterans reading “open letters” to Trump at public rallies. That plan seems to have fizzled.
Some conservative veterans’ groups are also speaking out against Trump, but the Democrat-backed groups are among the most vocal. And Clinton is not the only Dem who seems to be astro-turfing veterans’ opposition to Trump’s campaign. The Vote Vets Action Fund, the “largest progressive veterans group in the country,” which last week called Trump a “cheap fraud” for turning in only half of his promised pledge to veterans charities, is also a sophisticated front group raising and dispersing money to liberal causes.
The “dark money” organization, which has two employees, has spent $7.6 million propping up Democratic candidates and aligned organizations, and attacking Republicans. Most of the money comes not from veterans themselves (though Vote Vets claims to have 400,000 supporters), but from large labor unions and liberal non-profits. And it probably comes as no surprise that Vote Vets Action Fund gives generously to the Hillary Clinton-aligned SuperPAC, American Bridge.
Fortunately for Trump, the coordinated effort doesn’t seem to be working. Clinton was immediately asked how much she gave to veterans charities. Although Trump was under public duress forcing his million-dollar contribution, Clinton has given only a fraction of that, $105,000, to veterans charities. And Hillary has a long way to go to catch Trump in troop sentiment: he leads her by double digits among veterans, and 5 to 1 among active duty service members.