Pa. Rep. Scott Perry's comments roil Democratic veterans

Mark Satter, CQ-Roll Call on Oct 22, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Members of the House Democratic Veterans Caucus said in a statement Wednesday that recent comments by Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., were “disgusting” and that the former leader of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus should immediately apologize for suggesting that congressional Democrats hated the military and served solely for political reasons.

Perry, a former Army National Guard brigadier general and combat veteran, said in an interview on “The Chris Stigall Show” last week that Democrats in Congress don’t care about the Constitution or the nation’s defense and suggested they only join the military when they want to run for office.

“They join the military, they serve a little bit, they get the credential and then they run for office and wear the uniform and say, ‘Look at me — I support America.’ But let’s face it, all their votes say they don’t support America,” Perry said on the program, which is nationally syndicated by the conservative Salem Media Group. His comments were first widely reported to a wider audience by The New York Times.

In their statement, members of the House Democratic Veterans Caucus said they “refuse to take a lecture about military service or our love of country from an oathbreaker like Scott Perry,” a reference to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “(I)f Perry had a spine,” the statement continued, “he’d stand in front of the Democratic veterans he represents and say this garbage to their faces, but he doesn’t have the guts.”

The caucus is made up of at least 18 House lawmakers, many of whom serve on the House Armed Services Committee.

Perry said on Wednesday that he was not referring to all Democrats, but rather “shining a spotlight on the Leftists IN CONGRESS who serve in the military and use that as a shield to insulate themselves from accountability for their radical and corrosive ideologies.”

Perry said the same “Leftists now stomping their feet” about his response are also those who “caused the government to shut down …and are using this interview to distract from the damage they’re doing to the American people.”

Perry’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election led to him being investigated by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — the first sitting member of Congress to be included in the scope of the panel’s investigation.

Perry, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, refused to cooperate when asked by the select committee to provide information of any knowledge of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, calling the panel’s effort “illegitimate.”

The seventh-term congressman is one of the more vulnerable members of the House in the coming election cycle, with Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rating Perry’s race as “Tilt Republican.” Perry won his district last year by 1 percentage point, or about 5,100 votes.

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