Grassley Campaign Launches Ad Campaign on Franken Misleading Superior Officers
WEST DES MOINES — Today, the Grassley campaign announced a new advertising campaign exposing Mike Franken for his dishonesty to his superior officers in the military — and bragging about it.
Instead of speaking truth to power as he’s claimed in his latest television advertisement, Mike Franken intentionally gave false information to influence foreign policy. He bragged about this deception recounting, “Admittingly [sic], I inflated the cost of that. Quite a bit inflated it.”
The Grassley campaign’s latest digital campaign highlights that Mike Franken cannot be trusted to represent Iowans in the U.S. Senate.
BACKGROUND:
“There is internal strife in Burundi. Do you know where Burundi is? In the rift valley of Africa. By Tanzania. Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Congo on the other side of them. About 150 people were killed over the course of a couple weeks. … This was in the Obama Administration. Every administration has issues with this, just so you now. I was told, ‘Franken, you need to do something in Burundi.’ My response was, ‘what would you have me do? I am an executor of national will. Tell me what the national will is.’ ‘Well, I don’t know, but we need to do something. People are dying. Our ambassador feels uneasy about his well-being. We need to do something.’ ‘Okay, here is a suggestion. I put the necessary assets in the country to secure the airport in Bujumbura and the conduit going to the US embassy – just that, and I put in the necessary forces in there to do that for 30 days. Then regardless, we pull them out.’ ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, do that. Give me an estimate of how much that costs and how much forces are going to be.’ Admittingly, I inflated the cost of that. Quite a bit inflated it because I feared that once we got in we would never get out. I would go to my grave that indeed had we put 5,000 troops in Burundi today we would be talking about if 12,000 was enough.”
