Army combat veteran and Biden 2020 campaign surrogate Jason Kander unleashed a long, scathing attack on President Donald Trump on Friday night, calling out the alleged private insults and condescension from the president toward U.S. military veterans and war dead.

Kander, a former Missouri’s Secretary of State, withdrew from politics in 2018 after coming forward with his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He is currently a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and has traveled around the country campaign with the former vice president. He joined CNN Tonight with Don Lemon on Friday to react to the shocking report from The Atlantic — which several other news organizations have since added to as well — that details a whole host of denigrating and callous comments by Trump, where he purportedly used the terms “suckers” and “losers” to insult WWI war dead and Vietnam veterans like Sen. John McCain.

CNN host Lemon asked Kander to weigh in on what his initial reaction was to the stunning revelations in The Atlantic.

“I was sad because of how unsurprised I was, and yet surprised at how angry I have been in the last 24 hours since reading this article,” Kander said, visibly grimacing. “Here is the thing, Don. Folks who have served like myself, folks who are in the service right now, we didn’t need this article. The troops already know.”

He then referenced a recent Military Times poll that found half of the military service members surveyed had an unfavorable view of Trump, and the Biden had a slight edge in the head-to-head voting match-up. Kander then ran through a long list of slights and insults Trump has publicly inflicted on the military and military families.

“He said combat veterans not stricken with post traumatic stress are strong and that those like myself who are stricken with post-traumatic stress can’t handle it,” Kander noted. “The difference between these people, when I made my announcement I was taking my step off the stage to deal with PTSD, Vice President Joe Biden didn’t just make a statement, he called me and checked up on me. It is not about the things I mentioned. The reason [Trump] will lose the vote of current military members and families is because we know a leader when we see one and he is not it.”

Then Kander made a emotional plea for Biden, invoking the former vice president’s empathy and his personal, family connection to the military, as his son Beau served in the Army and deployed to Iraq in 2008 as a military lawyer.

“You know, one of the hardest things — and it is something I have never had to do — is to get that last long hug before your child deploys. You know, I can get emotional thinking about it because my family has been through it,” Kander said, visibly affected. “Imagine doing that and thinking that the president thinks that you and your family are ‘suckers,’ and if he or she doesn’t come home, then he or she is a ‘loser.’ I will tell you the difference here is that, you know how long it has been since we’ve had a President of the United States who has actually given a child that last final hug before they’ve gone off to war? It has been since [Dwight] Eisenhower. If we replace this person, this sorry excuse for a commander-in-chief, with Vice President Biden, then that will be the first time since Eisenhower that we will have had a President of the United States who has given their child one last final hug before they get on a plane to go to war, not knowing if they’ll ever see them again.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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