Wednesday, former U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith (D) claimed that Senate candidate Mike Durant was suffering from PTSD.
Griffith said on FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show” that “Durant is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“I mean he was shot down, lost his friends, and nobody goes through that without being disturbed a little bit,” he added.
The former congressman also claimed that Durant’s recent comments about the Second Amendment show that something was wrong with Durant mentally.
A wild segment with former U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith (D) — diagnoses Mike Durant with PTSD, makes Hitler and Mao comparisons https://t.co/BwGJ00NyKF via @FMTalk1065pods #alpolitics #ALSen
— Jeff Poor (@jeff_poor) April 6, 2022
Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, who has endorsed Durant for Senate, joined WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program” Thursday to express his outrage over Griffith’s comments.
“An attack on any veteran for the challenges that they face due to service-related issues should never ever be taken lightly or put into a negative light,” Flynn exclaimed.
The retired general said this just shows that Durant’s opponents realize they’re losing.
“I can smell fear through this conversation on the part of this guy, this fellow Griffith,” he continued, “and that’s exactly what their problem is. They can smell fear because they can smell a loss to Mike Durant.”
Flynn then defended Durant’s record.
“Mike Durant not only served our country honorable,” he explained, “and with distinction for twenty-two years in the Army, but in the decades since he’s built an incredibly, tremendously successful company from scratch that employs hundreds of Alabamians.”
He also took the opportunity to attack the Katie Britt campaign over Griffith’s comments.
“I call this guy [Britt’s] surrogate-in-chief,” he said. “He’s the negative surrogate-in-chief.”
Griffith has endorsed Katie Britt and has donated to her campaign.
The Durant campaign also released a statement criticizing Griffith and Britt over the comments.
“This is a slanderous attack on all veterans,” the release said. “For Katie Boyd Britt to stand by and play politics with serious issues like mental health and PTSD when we lose an average of 20 veterans a day to suicide is appalling. This shows just how far Katie Boyd Britt is willing to stoop to get back to the Swamp that she would attack veterans and mental health to do it.”
The release added, “Chief of Staff Katie Boyd Britt must immediately disown her supporter’s disgraceful comments. Mike not only served our country honorably and with distinction for 22 years in the Army, but in the decades since built a tremendously successful company from scratch that employs hundreds of Alabamians. For Parker Griffith to compare Mike Durant to Nazis & Communists is appalling and Chief of Staff Britt should condemn this disgusting smear.”
Britt campaign spokesman Sean Ross responded in a statement to Yellowhammer News.
“This is another desperate, inaccurate attempt by Mike Durant to distract from his support of gun control by blaming his opponents for something they had nothing to do with,” said Ross in the statement. “It’s also yet another example of Mike Durant playing a favorite game of Democrats and the liberal media — demand your political opponents answer for things said or done by other people. It’s no wonder why John McCain surrogate Mike Durant is a darling of California, Big Tech donors of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Lincoln Project. At the end of the day, Mike Durant wants voters to not hold him responsible for his own words advocating for gun control, while at the same time expecting voters to hold his opponent responsible for someone else’s words. For someone who professes to be an outsider, Mike Durant is clearly already a seasoned professional at the type of hypocritical, head-spinning flip-flops that Alabamians are sick of.”
He continued, “One silver lining of the Durant campaign’s latest lie is that we get another opportunity to highlight that Katie has made mental health and supporting our tremendous veterans pillars of her campaign since day one, and she continues to be the only candidate in the race releasing specific plans on important policy priorities. Katie’s op-ed from August on mental health and how veterans are especially impacted can be read here, a past article highlighting her passion for combatting the rash of veteran suicides here, and you can find these crucial topics highlighted on her website here. In contrast, neither mental health nor supporting veterans are even listed on the Issues page on Mike Durant’s website.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee