In a fairly nicely worded letter, as far as partisan politics go these days, Rep. Seth Moulton and two other fellow veteran, freshman congressmen asked House Speaker Paul Ryan to withdraw his endorsement of Donald Trump.

Moulton, a Democrat from Salem, joined fellow Iraq War veteran Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, and Rep. Ted Lieu, an Air Force veteran and California Democrat, in the letter dated Monday. They urged Ryan, a Republican, to withdraw his endorsement of his party’s presidential nominee—in light of Trump’s most recent remarks toward the parents of a fallen solider.

But first, they praised the Republican speaker’s “decency” and quoted the words Ryan said when he first took on the role of Speaker of the House: “Wherever you come from, whatever you believe, we are all in the same boat.”


In a conference call Tuesday morning, Moulton called Trump “a maniac,” who was “unfit” to be president, echoing similar words from President Barack Obama. In the letter Monday, they noted how Ryan had initially withheld his endorsement of Trump, and now asked the speaker to take it back.

“We are heartened by your first instinct, which was to not endorse Mr. Trump,” the Democratic congressmen wrote. “We respectfully request that you follow what we believe your heart is telling you and withdraw your endorsement of him now.”

The freshman congressmen said they felt Trump threatened the future integrity of the House of Representatives and that the the GOP nominee’s “profound disrespect” toward the parents of Army Captain Humayan Khan, who was killed in Iraq, represented a “new low.”

Trump’s back-and-forth with Khan’s parents continued to draw rebukes from fellow Republicans across the country Tuesday, including Ryan, who said in a statement Sunday the sacrifice of the Khan family “should always be honored. Period.”