Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., blasted a video released by six Democrat lawmakers urging U.S. military personnel to resist orders from President Donald Trump, telling Newsmax on Tuesday the message is dangerous, irresponsible, and undermines the confidence young service members need to survive in combat.
Appearing on "Wake Up America Early," Bergman — a retired Marine lieutenant general — said the video's impact goes far beyond politics.
"What that video did, it potentially put in the minds of these young men and women who are in uniform … doubt," Bergman said. "That's the opposite of what we do in training for a military operation. It's the confidence that enables our service members to succeed in battle."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., posted the video to social media last week, urging members of the U.S. military and intelligence community to "stand up" to the Trump administration and reject what she and five other Democrat lawmakers called "illegal orders."
Slotkin would subsequently admit that Trump has not issued any illegal orders to date.
Bergman said the lawmakers who produced the video, also including Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., appeared motivated solely by hatred for Trump, and in the process "went a long way toward tarnishing the image of Congress."
"Let's face it, the American people already have a bad enough image of what Congress does or doesn't do," he said. "That video really put Congress in the tank in a lot of people's minds as far as having good people elected to actually do what we were sent there to do — good policy and law."
Beyond the political fallout, Bergman stressed that the video caused real harm to U.S. military readiness.
"Those folks hurt our readiness from a warfighting perspective," he said. "And that gets people hurt."
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