It was Democratic Senator Wednesday for the late night comedy shows. Before Elizabeth Warren appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Tammy Duckworth joined The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng on Comedy Central to attempt to equate downsizing the federal government with being anti-veteran.
After a brief discussion recalling Duckworth’s Iraq War service, Chieng recalled, “Then you decided to run for Congress, and you won.”
Duckworth cited veterans’ issues as a reason for her initial run, “I did, I was pissed off that we were not taking care of our veterans, so I decided to run.”
That led Chieng to wonder, “How are we treating our veterans?”
According to the left, if you don’t agree with them, you must have something personal against women or minorities, and now Duckworth insisted on adding veterans to the list, “Well, we were doing really well until Trump decided to fire 6,000 of them from their federal jobs. Veterans after they serve in the military tend to want to serve the country, continue to and—”
After Chieng interrupted to add “as civil servants,” Duckworth continued, “Civil servants. Thirty percent of the federal workforce are veterans, and so this president has fired more veterans than any other president in modern history: 6,000 and counting.”
Chieng then asked, “And that specifically, was it DOGE or was it something else?”
Duckworth answered, “It was DOGE’s across-the-board cuts. When you fire this many federal employees, you’re going to lose that many veterans, but DOGE has also come out and announced they want 80,000 personnel, just from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That’s their next target.”
The idea that cutting government is anti-veteran is simply a fallacious appeal to emotion. If 30 percent of the federal workforce are veterans, then 70 percent are not. Americans are allowed to disagree with Tammy Duckworth and Ronny Chieng on the proper size of the federal bureaucracy without being personally attacked.
Here is a transcript for the April 16 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
4/16/2025
11:25 PM ET
RONNY CHIENG: Then you decided to run for Congress, and you won.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I did, I was pissed off that we were not taking care of our veterans, so I decided to run.
CHIENG: Yeah, and, so how are we treating our veterans?
DUCKWORTH: Well, we were doing really well until Trump decided to fire 6,000 of them from their federal jobs. Veterans after they serve in the military tend to want to serve the country, continue to and—
CHIENG: As civil servants.
DUCKWORTH: Civil servants. Thirty percent of the federal workforce are veterans, and so this president has fired more veterans than any other president in modern history: 6,000 and counting.
CHIENG: And how is that, how is that, okay, we get it. All right, they don’t like it.
DUCKWORTH: Yeah.
CHIENG: And that specifically, was it DOGE or was it something else?
DUCKWORTH: It was DOGE’s across-the-board cuts. When you fire this many federal employees, you’re going to lose that many veterans, but DOGE has also come out and announced they want 80,000 personnel, just from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That’s their next target.
