Politico | What’s Donald Trump’s beef with ‘Da Nang Dick’?
- A long-running feud over New York City real estate may play a part in the ongoing attacks on Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Burgess Everett and Gabby Orr on politico.com on January 29, 2019.
He’s not a household name. He’s not running for president. Yet Richard Blumenthal keeps getting under US President Donald Trump’s skin.
Every few months, the president unleashes on the Connecticut Democrat by ridiculing his military service record, a surprising attack on a rank-and-file senator by the commander in chief.
Blumenthal dutifully votes against many of the president’s nominees and is quick to raise questions about his administration and even the president’s family, yet is not exactly as well-known as Elizabeth Warren or Chuck Schumer, some of Trump's other favourite targets.
But Trump’s beef against Blumenthal is multi-faceted, spanning from family drama to digs at the senator’s military service – though Trump too has faced questions of his service.
There’s also Blumenthal v. Trump. The former Connecticut attorney general took the high profile step of suing the president in 2017 for allegedly violating the Foreign Emoluments clause.
So when the president attacks Blumenthal, he does so with the same intensity that he goes after someone like Warren or California lawmaker Adam Schiff.