Senator who lost legs in Iraq attacks Donald Trump over treason claims: 'I swore an oath to the Constitution, not Cadet Bone Spurs'

A US Senator and army veteran has criticised Donald Trump for calling Democrats who did not applaud during his first State of the Union address “treasonous”.

“We don’t live in a dictatorship or a monarchy,” Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in the Iraq War in 2004, said in a Twitter post.

“I swore an oath – in the military and in the Senate – to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to mindlessly cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs and clap when he demands I clap.”

Mr Trump received five deferments from service in the Vietnam War: four for academic reasons and one for bone spurs – calcium formations – in his heels

Mr Trump’s State of the Union address on 31 January called for bipartisan unity, but a number of Democrats in the audience stayed seated throughout his speech and did not applaud.

“You cannot reject bipartisan plans to improve health care and protect Dreamers or sow hate and division — and then turn around the next day and say you want to work together,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California said at the time.

Referencing the Democrats’ reaction to his landmark address during an appearance at a manufacturing plant in Ohio on Monday, Mr Trump said: ”They were like death and un-American. Un-American.

“Somebody said, ‘Treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not?

“Can we call that treason? Why not. I mean they certainly didn’t seem to love our country that much.” He added the response was “very, very sad”.

Treason is a capital offence and punishable by death in the US. After Mr Trump’s speech, Ms Duckworth, who has served as the junior Senator for Illlinois since last year, posted the US Constitution’s definition of the crime on Twitter.

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” the Constitution says.

“No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses.”

Ms Duckworth was the first US female double amputee from the Iraq war, suffering severe injuries when a Black Hawk helicopter she was in was shot down. She was elected to Congress in 2013 after retiring from the army.

Monday was not the first time she had called the US President “Cadet Bone Spurs”. In a Senate-floor speech in January, she accused him of trying to bait North Korea into a war, putting both the military and the national security of the United States at risk.

“I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible.

“Sadly, this is something the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do — and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger.”

She continued: “I have a message for ‘Cadet Bone Spurs'. If you cared about our military, you’d stop baiting Kim Jong-un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops, and millions of innocent civilians, in danger.”

Mr Trump told a news conference in 2015 he could not remember which heel the bone spurs had affected, but his campaign said it was both.

Mr Trump told The New York Times the problem had been “minor” and ”healed up” without an operation.