WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) held a press call to discuss her recent official overseas trip to South Korea and Japan, as well as highlight how deadly and destructive renewed hostilities with north Korea would be. Duckworth and U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), a fellow Veteran, spent four days meeting with America’s top military leaders and diplomats in the region, American servicemembers, Defense and Foreign Affairs Ministers from Japan and South Korea, South Korea’s top military commanders, North Korean defectors and human rights activists.

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Duckworth and Gallego have been outspoken about the need for the Trump administration to be clear-eyed about the costs of war with North Korea. Citing the lack of public debate before she deployed to Iraq, Duckworth recently wrote to President Trump asking him to share declassified military estimates of how many American servicemembers and innocent civilians would lose their lives if we went to war with North Korea – and she is also an original co-sponsor of Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) legislation to prevent President Trump from launching a preemptive strike against North Korea without authorization from Congress unless there is an imminent threat. The United States has nearly 80,000 servicemembers stationed in South Korea and Japan.

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