Hume on Trump's calls for Sen. Tester to resign
President Trump takes issue with the Democratic senator's allegations against White House Dr. Ronny Jackson.
Just days after President Donald Trump called for Sen. Jon Tester’s resignation for his role in torpedoing Dr. Ronny Jackson's nomination to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, a pro-Trump super PAC is unloading on the Montana Democrat.
In a television advertisement unveiled Tuesday, America First Action quotes Trump calling Tester, who is up for re-election this year, "dishonest" and disgraceful."
“In Montana, we value integrity and support our president,” the narrator in the ad begins. “But Jon Tester spread false information about a respected Navy admiral, helping D.C. Democrats derail President Trump’s Veterans Affairs nominee.”
The ad charges that Tester "has been part of the D.C. swamp for far too long," and has "betrayed our trust, our veterans and our president."
The narrator concludes: “It’s time for him to go.”
Jackson, who had long served as White House doctor and a Navy admiral, withdrew his nomination last week to lead the VA, the federal government's second-largest department. On Monday, it was announced that Jackson also will no longer be Trump's personal physician.
"I've never seen a better man taken down by a more disgusting group of people in my life."
Jackson had been besieged by unproven allegations compiled by Tester’s office concerning his prescription-drug practices and use of alcohol. Tester is the top Democrat on the Republican-controlled Senate Veteran Affairs Committee.
Among the most prominent charges: that Jackson had drunkenly banged on a female colleague's door in the middle of the night during a presidential trip, and that he had "wrecked" a vehicle after attending a boozy Secret Service party.
But officials who checked Jackson's driving record found no evidence he crashed a government car, and the Secret Service could not confirm the nighttime episode that supposedly came close to waking a sleeping President Barack Obama.
Trump immediately came to Jackson's defense, tweeting last week that "[t]he Secret Service is unable to confirm (in fact they deny) any of the phony Democrat charges which have absolutely devastated the wonderful Jackson family."
Speaking to "Fox & Friends," former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino called the effort against Jackson "a political hit job of the highest order."
"I've never seen a better man taken down by a more disgusting group of people in my life," Bongino said.
Montana has become more Republican since Tester last won election by four points in 2012, and the GOP controls virtually all statewide offices in Montana except the governorship and Tester's seat.