Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., suggested on Monday that the National Guard could pose an insider threat to President-to-be Joe Biden because the military arm is mostly white, male, and “more conservative.”
.@RepCohen: “You have to figure that the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative…there are probably not more than 25% of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden.
The other 75% are in the…large class of folks who might want to do something.” pic.twitter.com/thd3lFbYQw
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 18, 2021
Cohen’s comments followed a report that the Defense Department was vetting National Guard troops ahead of Inauguration Day to prevent any further unrest.
“The Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20% of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media … they’re probably not more than 25% of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden,” Cohen told CNN.
“The other 75% are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So it does concern me,” he said.
CNN’s Jim Sciutto pushed back on Cohen’s claims, asking for evidence that troops who might have voted for President Trump would pose a threat to Biden.
Cohen admitted he didn’t have any evidence, though he doubled down on the idea that you could “draw a circle first” around Trump voters in the Guard as people we should be “suspect of.”
Even the Washington Post‘s notoriously left-wing fact-checker slammed Cohen for suggesting military members would betray their oath of office.
Hmmm, does a Democratic congressman really want to suggest that if you voted for Trump you might be a seditionist? What happened to the idea that military people are professionals and do their jobs regardless of political preferences? https://t.co/EGTfALYBYV
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 18, 2021
