As Republicans battle over direct military engagement with Iran, prominent conservatives and allies of the president have emerged as forceful voices against intervening, lashing out at a host of political players — except for President Donald Trump.

Warring factions within the Republican Party have sought to pull Trump in opposing directions on how to deal with Iran. Isolationists are seeking to hold Trump to his repeated campaign promises to not involve the U.S. in another major Middle East war, while interventionists like Sen. Lindsey Graham have urged the president to go tougher on Iran — an approach that appears to be winning Trump's favor.

Even as Republicans have spoken up against engaging in a conflict with Iran, criticizing everyone from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Graham for their role in the unfolding conflict, few dared to directly attack the president over his approach.

“Take screenshots of every single right winger who is shit talking Trump right now,” conservative social media personality Laura Loomer wrote on X on Monday, encouraging her followers to post the evidence in the replies. “I have most of them. But I don’t want to miss any.”

Loomer specifically slammed “grifters” for “turning on President Trump” in speaking out against possible military intervention in Iran.

Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon cautioned against U.S. military involvement in Iran, warning at a Christian Science Monitor event on Wednesday that “we can’t have another Iraq.”

“The Israelis have to finish what they started. They started this. They should finish it,” he continued, criticizing Netanyahu for expecting the Trump administration to rush to his aid after launching an attack on Iran last week.

Still, many of Trump’s backers have been vocal in their support of his approach to Iran.

“President Trump is a President of peace, not of war,” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said on Tuesday. “I trust him and his Cabinet to put America First, and I’m with him all the way.”

The split within the party appeared to also motivate Vice President JD Vance — a veteran who historically sided with isolationists — to weigh in. In a 375-word post on X Tuesday, Vance acknowledged the concerns over a long- drawn-out war but staunchly defended the president and potential actions against Iran.

“Of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy,” Vance said. “But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.”

Trump himself seems to be trying to balance the two sides. After initially shying away from directly supporting Israel’s campaign against Iran, he indicated the U.S. is poised to assist with direct attacks, and is considering using American “bunker buster” bombs to target Iran’s Fordow enrichment facility, which the Israeli military is not equipped to destroy alone.

The administration has stood firm on its position amid criticism from within the party.

“President Trump has never wavered in his stance that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and repeated that promise to the American people since his victorious campaign. Americans trust President Trump to make the right decisions to keep them safe,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

One of the few conservative figures willing to directly attack Trump is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who last week accused the president of being “complicit in the act of war” after Israel launched missiles at Iran.

Carlson continued his broadsides against more hawkish GOP figures and tangled with Sen. Ted Cruz in an episode of Carlson’s podcast that aired Wednesday, attacking the senator for his seeming obliviousness to the nuances of the Iranian nation that he was encouraging action against.

Carlson’s salvo against Trump elicited the president’s ire, with Trump on Monday criticizing him as “kooky” on Truth Social.

But Trump Wednesday seemed to suggest he and Carlson had smoothed things over.

“Tucker is a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day, because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch supporter of the president, also came close to direct criticism of the president when she came out in support of the former Fox News host.

“He unapologetically believes the same things I do,” Greene wrote in a post on X. “Foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for.”

In a separate post, Greene slammed the “neocon warmongers” she said were seeking a “proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, fighting Iran for Israel, and protecting Taiwan for China.”

But some Republican leaders seemed unfazed by the swell of protest from within MAGA circles.

"We have people as you know in our party who have different views about America's role in the world,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “But I think the president is well within his authority, understands what's at stake in ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon and will do everything he can to protect America and American interest."

Jordain Carney and Jake Traylor contributed to this report.

American Federation of Teachers union President Randi Weingarten, a longtime influential member of the Democratic National Committee, is leaving the DNC, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.

Weingarten, who has been a member of the DNC for 23 years, wrote DNC Chair Ken Martin that she had fundamental disagreements with leadership.

"I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging," she said in the letter dated June 5, "and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more of our communities."

Weingarten has defended former DNC vice chair David Hogg, who was ousted last week from the committee, as he has come under fire over his decision to fund primary challenges against Democrats that he sees as ineffective in safe-blue districts.

"Randi has gotten applause from the members when she told them, much to her dismay as a proud Dem," said a spokesperson for Weingarten.

Martin told DNC officers and staff in a recent private conversation that Hogg had "essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to" and "I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore," as POLITICO first reported.

Weingarten sat on the DNC's powerful rules and bylaws committee since 2009, and has been a delegate to Democratic conventions since 1992.

A spokesperson for the DNC did not immediately provide comment for this story.

Within the Trump administration, Richard Grenell is a jack of all trades. When he’s not acting in a diplomatic capacity as special presidential envoy, he’s also running one of Washington's most esteemed arts institutions, the Kennedy Center. “Everyone should be welcome. No one should be booed. No one should be banned,” Grenell tells Politico’s Dasha Burns in a wide-ranging interview in the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer. Grenell explains why he thinks “the intolerance is coming from the left,” and why “the gay community has to police itself” at Pride parades. Grenell also sheds light on the Trump administration’s talks with Russia, immigration enforcement, his potential run for California Governor, and his friendship with First Lady Melania Trump.

Grenell also responds to reports that ticket sales and subscriptions have dropped at the Kennedy Center. Grenell calls those reports “wrong.” Read the statements from the Kennedy Center’s CFO here and its SVP of Marketing here.

Plus, senior political reporter Melanie Mason joins Burns to talk about the immigration protests in Los Angeles and how California Governor Gavin Newsom is leading the fight against President Trump’s military intervention.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Richard Grenell on cancel culture, ‘normal gays’ and his friend Melania | The Conversation

lead image

https://www.politico.com/video/2025/06/14/richard-grenell-on-cancel-culture-normal-gays-and-his-friend-melania-the-conversation-1651331

Political leaders from across the spectrum and around the country called for calm after one Minnesota lawmaker was killed and another was seriously injured in apparent politically motivated shootings on Saturday.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state law enforcement officials said Saturday that former state Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were seriously injured in a pair of shootings that the governor labeled as “politically motivated assassinations.”

The violence in Minnesota is only the latest incident of apparent politically fueled attacks in America in recent weeks, which include a pair of Israeli embassy staffers being gunned down in Washington earlier this month.

In response to Saturday’s shootings, state lawmakers from both parties have issued a call for calm and an end to further violence.

California’s Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Republican Minority Leader James Gallagher issued a rare joint statement Saturday afternoon, saying “we stand together in condemning it in the strongest possible terms.”

“As leaders on both sides of the aisle, we call on everyone to take down the temperature, respect differences of opinion and work toward peace in our society,” their statement read.

They were followed by the leaders of the California state Senate, Democratic Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, who said there is “no cause, no grievance, no election justifies the use of fear or force against our fellow human beings.”

Minnesota’s entire congressional delegation, including Democratic Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar as well as Republican Rep. Tom Emmer, the House GOP whip, put out a joint statement condemning the attack.

“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence,” they said.

Saturday’s shooting deeply rattled politicians from both parties, who have seen an increase in threats and violence directed toward them over the last several years — particularly since the pandemic and the riot at Capitol Hill in Washington in 2021.

It is particularly acute for state elected officials. Members of Congress have long said they do not have adequate security resources as they face an increasingly threatening environment, and Capitol police have regularly warned about elevated risks for lawmakers. But that’s especially true for state lawmakers, many of whom only do the job part time with little to no official security provided by their jobs.

“None of us who run for public office sign up for this,” Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat, said in a statement following the shooting. “We sign up to serve our communities, to debate policy, and to work on behalf of our constituents – not to have our lives and our families threatened by political extremists.”

Following the shooting, Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, urged Minnesotans to not attend protests planned in the state for Saturday — meant to serve as a countermeasure to President Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington— “out of an abundance of caution.”

In a separate statement, he said political violence must end. “We are not a country that settles our differences at gunpoint,” he said. “We have demonstrated again and again in our state that it is possible to peacefully disagree, that our state is strengthened by civil public debate.”

That call was swiftly echoed by many of Walz’s gubernatorial colleagues across the country.

“These attacks are not just assaults on individuals, they are attacks on our communities, and the very foundation of our democracy,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Democrat and Republican and the chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association. “Now more than ever, we must come together as one nation to ensure that our public square remains a place of debate, not danger."

Before Los Angeles, there was Portland, Oregon.

For more than 170 days in 2020, thousands of Portlanders gathered to protest police violence. They lay peacefully in the middle of the city’s most iconic bridge and marched with a local NBA star — but also tore down statues and looted shops. Police launched tear gas canisters into crowds, while the 750 Department of Homeland Security agents President Donald Trump dispatched to the city without the approval of local or state officials grabbed protesters at night and loaded them into unmarked vehicles.

As anti-Trump protests ramp up — with major rallies taking place across the country on Saturday — Portland officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of 2020.

“The Portland Police and then the feds overreacting in the way that they did, I think it brought even more people out because it was such injustice,” said Ali King, a veteran social organizer in Portland who worked for now-retired Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) at the time. “When I saw the LA thing, I just had flashbacks. I did feel some PTSD.”

The impact of those protests and riots on Portland was massive. Voters completely overhauled the city’s government structure, the county elected a more tough-on-crime district attorney, and the police department reformed the way it deals with protesters.

Five years later and 1000 miles away, President Trump again deployed federal officers into a city beset by protests against the will of state and local officials. Those recent events in Los Angeles have put Portland back on edge. Protests this week in the Rose City have been largely peaceful, but as tensions grow, officials hope policy changes will be enough to avoid a repeat of 2020’s violence and prevent federal involvement.

“We've changed so much since 2020,” Mayor Keith Wilson, a trucking company owner and political outsider who was elected in 2024 on a progressive platform of fixing the city’s homeless problem and improving public safety, told POLITICO earlier this week. “But federal overreach is something we're concerned about, and we're prepared to sue.”

A review conducted by an independent monitor after the 2020 protests found failings by the city and the police department ranging from poor communication with the public to inadequate training in deescalation tactics and insufficient guidance about when and how to use force. These problems, the review found, led to mistrust between the public and the police and escalated — rather than deescalated — the situation.

In the wake of that review and a handful of lawsuits brought against the police department for actions taken during the 2020 protests, significant changes were made to the city’s policing policies. Wilson and Portland Police Chief Bob Day told POLITICO those changes include reducing use of tear gas and militarized gear, overhauling the department’s rapid response team and establishing liaison officers to build relationships with community organizers. Members of the department also attended training in Cincinnati and London to learn from experts in deescalation and crowd control, Day added.

“We're looking at large-scale events much differently than we've done in the past,” said Day, a former deputy chief who was called out of retirement in 2023 to be interim chief by then-mayor Ted Wheeler. “What you want to bring, from a public safety standpoint, is you're not adding to the chaos.”

Most protests in Portland since these changes were instituted have been peaceful, but Sergeant Aaron Schmautz, president of Portland’s police union, says the city hasn’t faced a situation like 2020 that would put the new tactics to the test.

“There's just a lot of nervousness right now,” he said.

Portland is not alone in the Northwest. Tensions are also growing in Seattle and Spokane, neighboring Washington’s two largest cities, in light of anti-ICE protests and the federal government’s response in Los Angeles. Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes said Tuesday he will do anything in his power to protect Seattleites “from anyone who comes to the city with the intention to hurt them or inhibit their First Amendment rights,” and was willing to risk arrest to do so. Then on Wednesday, at least eight demonstrators were arrested by Seattle police after a dumpster was set on fire. In Spokane, meanwhile, Democratic Mayor Lisa Brown instituted a curfew after more than 30 people, including a former city council president, were arrested during protests.

King said protesters in Portland are willing to put their bodies in the way to stop ICE actions, like physically blocking agents’ path or distracting them. And she says trust between protesters and the Portland Police Bureau is still really low. But she added that the community has been having its own conversations about remaining peaceful and deescalating within the ranks at protests.

Terrence Hayes, a formerly incarcerated local community organizer who is on the city’s criminal justice commission and supports giving the police more resources, said the city’s mood has changed since 2020. The months of violence, tear gas, looting and arrests by federal officers are something residents are not excited to revisit.

“I just don't think we're looking for that fight,” Hayes said. “If ICE start pushing certain lanes, of course people are going to stand up and protest — but I don't think they're going to be inner-city destructive.”

King added that “if somebody is kidnapping an innocent person off the streets … [we] might have to physically get involved.”

Over the last week, there have been protests across the city, including outside the local ICE office. The vast majority have been peaceful, Schmautz said, with minor instances of violence or destructive behavior like arson. The department has arrested about 13 people over the last week. For a city so renowned for its protests that it was once called “Little Beirut” by a staffer for George H.W. Bush (a moniker a local band proudly took as their own), the last week has been notably quiet.

Day said this week shows the new policies are already helping deescalate. But 2025 is very different from 2020 in a key way: Then, Portlanders were protesting their own police department. Now, the target is the federal immigration apparatus. The police department will not assist ICE, Day explained, but needs to prevent violence or lawbreaking all the same. He calls the gray area for local police “a very complex, nuanced challenge.”

The chief gave two examples: Earlier this week, Portland Police removed debris piled by protesters that was preventing ICE contractors from entering a parking lot — receiving criticism from city residents for doing so. At the time, the department contends, the contractors were not engaged in enforcement actions and officers believed that moving the debris would reduce tensions. But on another day, police watched passively nearby and did not help federal officers clear a path through a similar group of protesters for a van carrying detained immigrants to pass.

Day said in a normal situation, they would clear a blocked street. But with ICE, they “are not going to actively enforce some of these laws” that are hindering ICE’s operation, Day said. But, he added, “we can't say that the ICE facility, in itself, as it stands, is free game, that anybody can do whatever they want to that building or to that area.”

The wild card, according to everyone involved, is the small portion of people who show up and try to escalate conflict and encourage illegal behavior. Nearly everyone who spoke to POLITICO for this article mentioned groups on the right and left who are suspected of coming to peaceful protests in order to incite violence.

“Law enforcement may be called to navigate criminal activity on the fringes of a free speech event, which creates a lot of challenges,” Schmautz said.

And at the core of the conversation is Portland’s collective identity as a city that is always willing to fight back. Chief Day noted Portland’s longstanding protest culture. Free speech demonstrations are one of the city’s core values, Schmautz added. King said she and her fellow protesters expect to become a target of the Trump administration in the coming days or weeks.

But perhaps Hayes put it best: “If you push, Portland pushes back,” he said. “If they come to Portland acting up, Portland's gonna return that LA energy.”

Democrats see turning to a new type of candidate to give them an edge in the 2026 midterms: mothers of young children.

JoAnna Mendoza, a single mother of a 9-year-old son, launched a bid to run in Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District in February. Christina Hines, a mother of three, threw her hat in the ring for an open seat in Michigan's 10th Congressional District in April. And in Iowa, state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a mom of two, is vying for the state’s 3rd Congressional District in May.

Motherhood — once seen as a political liability — is becoming a key plank of campaign messaging for a new crop of Democratic candidates. Candidates are not just listing their credentials as former Marines or special victims prosecutors, but are also leaning into their experience raising a family in their pitch to voters.

"Women candidates work so much harder than anyone else, and especially mothers, because they know how to really juggle and manage a lot of things, but they also know what's at stake,” said Trone Garriott, who said she raised $230,000 within the first 24 hours of launching her congressional campaign that leans into her “public school mom” persona.

And they have support from Vote Mama, a PAC dedicated to helping mothers of minor children get elected to public office. The group currently has 70 endorsed candidates and expects that number to grow.

“Moms have had enough,” said Liuba Grechen Shirley, who founded Vote Mama after her own unsuccessful run in 2018. “Our policies fail moms.”

The recent rush of political involvement from mothers follows past waves. Most famously, the sexual harassment allegations that dominated Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination in the 1990s inspired a fresh crop of women running in 1992. But more recently, President Donald Trump’s first presidential win inspired candidates in the 2018 midterms, and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 pushed new grassroots groups to organize.

Despite some high-profile examples — former Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously raised five children before running for Congress — mothers of young children remain rare in elected office. Only 6.8 percent of the members of the 118th Congress were mothers of children under 18, compared to 24.2 percent being fathers of minor children, according to data released by Vote Mama. At the state level, only 7.9 percent of all legislators are women with minor children.

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, groups like Vote Mama say they are seeing renewed energy from mothers frustrated by Republican-led efforts to slash funding to programs that support families, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid.

But as more women enter public office, tensions arise with business as usual. Earlier this year, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and a bipartisan group of lawmakers thrust motherhood into the spotlight with a push to allow proxy voting in the House — a move that drew aggressive criticism from conservatives and ultimately failed. “Show up for work, or don’t run for Congress,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a post on X. But Luna’s campaign shows that there are signs of growing support for mothers serving in Congress.

“What is noticeable is that it started as a bipartisan effort, and because of that, I think that just helps show that this is not tied to your political party,” said Gayle Goldin, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. “This is something that needs to be in effect for women, regardless of their political party.”

Internal grapples with parental responsibilities has been one thing moms said they considered carefully. Hines, whose campaign was motivated by Trump’s push to dismantle the Education Department, said she weighed the potential toll her candidacy could have on her family before making the decision to run.

“My biggest hesitation is the fact that I do have three kids — they’re nine, seven and four — and they are my biggest passion and love of my life," Hines said. "The idea, not just of the campaign, but of winning and then being away from them, was something that was holding me back.”

And motherhood is front and center for many candidates’ messaging strategy. Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who recently announced a long-shot bid against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in May, said in her candidate announcement video: "I'm literally a busy mom," highlighting taking her kids to tae kwon do, dance and football.

But Andrews' pitch to voters also aims to emphasize her blend of experience, highlighting her concerns as a doctor over Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s contested agenda. “Like so many of you, I am worried about what the future holds for our kids,” she said.

And some of these moms are already seeing early enthusiasm for their candidacies. Mendoza, who is running in Arizona, raised over $816,000 for her first-quarter FEC filing, an impressive figure for a candidate seeking federal office for the first time. She's also locked down endorsements from BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political arm, and VoteVets, a progressive group that backs veterans running for office.

"We're already in the political arena ready to go," Mendoza said. "Some of these other candidates are outside the stadium trying to figure out how to get in.”

Democrats’ newest approach to win back voters is a fresh embrace of the nation's oldest symbol.

Two days ahead of Flag Day, when President Donald Trump’s military parade will run through the streets of Washington, Democratic Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) fanned out Thursday afternoon to give a gift to their colleagues to unite them.

It was a 4-inch-by-6-inch American flag, which they passed out at almost the exact moment, unbeknownst to them, that Sen. Alex Padilla was getting forcibly removed and handcuffed at a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles — an act House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries would later call “unpatriotic.”

The flags, made in Deluzio’s Pennsylvania, came with a message in an accompanying dear colleague letter written by Ryan, a West Point grad who served two tours in Iraq, and Deluzio, a U.S. Navy officer who did three deployments there. They have joined forces to become co-chairs of the first-ever, 18-member Democratic Veterans Caucus, formed just three days ago.

“Patriotism does not belong to one party,” the letter read. “The flag, and the values it stands for, belong to every single American.”

As Democrats look for a message to rebut the MAGA right, they are looking within their own ranks for a credible message against the overreach of those holding power.

“The timing is very apt, because we've now had a senator handcuffed; we've had one of my House colleagues charged and now indicted; we've had not just the National Guard federalized, but active duty troops deployed against U.S. citizens, and increasingly, Trump, who really is the Republican Party now, their definition of patriotism, is, do you support Trump and MAGA?” Ryan told POLITICO. “And if you don't, then you're not patriotic."

Democrats see the military display taking place in Washington on the Army’s 250th birthday — which also happens to coincide with President Donald Trump's 78th birthday — as emblematic of a president who puts himself above the country. In his speech this week, even California Gov. Gavin Newsom framed his criticism of Trump in patriotic terms, saying he’s “ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.”

It's a message that a beleaguered party hopes resonates in the 90 percent of counties that shifted to Republicans last November. Or, as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) put it earlier this year, it's time for Democrats to “fucking retake the flag.”

Ahead of Trump’s parade, outside groups like VoteVets are rallying former servicemembers to make a not-so-subtle contrast. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy officer, is organizing fellow veterans online to “call out how Trump is putting his ego first while he fires veterans from federal jobs and guts the VA.” Others who also served in the armed forces, like JoAnna Mendoza who is running to challenge Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, plan to be involved in the pushback.

“Patriotism is not something the Democratic Party should concede, because patriotism is not something the Republican Party created,” Moore said in an interview.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Instagram Thursday said “any salute to the flag or patriotism or talk of American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents.”

In Iowa last month at a town hall hosted by the Democratic political action committee VoteVets, Buttigieg closed his opening remarks with an extended meditation on the flag to his three-year-old daughter. The former Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan for seven months extolled “the values that flag represents, the story, the incredibly rich and inspiring — and yes, very, complicated story, of everything that has happened under that flag and in the name of that flag.”

And it comes at a time when the party’s brightest stars include a number of veterans — including some poised to enter governor's mansions and help Democrats retake the House.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, her party's gubernatorial nominee in New Jersey, is a former Navy helicopter pilot.

Her candidacy has inspired a group of female veterans running for Congress in 2026, who hope to replicate the success of the 2018 wave by running moderates with national security experience.

And like Buttigieg, other possible 2028 presidential contenders are leaning into powerful national symbols: Kelly is also a former astronaut. And there is Reuben Gallego, a Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq.

In attempting to reclaim the flag from its right-coded fixture at the moment, Democrats face no easy task: One study found that a single exposure to the American flag shifts voter sentiment to the right for up to eight months after.

Major General (Ret.) Paul Eaton, a senior adviser to VoteVets, the PAC that sponsored Buttigieg's town hall last month, said messaging that has been so successful on the right to pigeonhole the other party [as] less than patriotic.”

Mendoza, a retired US Marine, says she finds it "extremely frustrating" when Republicans claim to be the true party of patriots. Medoza said she deliberately chose her campaign colors to be red, white and blue to make a point that "they don't own it, and we have to take it back."

"The Republican Party does not own this country, they don't own the American flag," she said. "It belongs to the people."

Democrats have spent years battling perceptions that they are less patriotic — and reversing that image could take just as long.

But “a key part of the way out of the moment we're in will be military veterans who can help bridge the divide," Ryan said. "That's why I think this reassertion of a constructive, unifying patriotism is absolutely just essential right now.”