7/27/2017
“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree.” “We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program” said Michael Surbaugh, the Boy Scout’s chief. “It was never our intent” for the National Jamboree to become a venue for partisan political attacks.
Speaking to approximately 40,000 10-14 year old Boy Scouts, Trump decided it was a good venue to talk about his election victory, attack the free press, and criticized Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama. Trump went into detail about winning the electoral college, election map and the failures of Clinton campaign strategy in Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan. President Obama deferred attending jamborees during his term because of the Boy Scout’s ban on gay members, which has since been abolished.
Every sitting president for the past 80 years has been invited to speak at the jamboree. Until now, presidents have taken the time not to talk about politics to 10-14 year olds, but to extol the virtues of things like good citizenship and serving others. Trump did take the time to take a shot at his own administration stating “As the Scout Law says: ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal’ — we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”
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