Capt. Sully blasts Trump’s ‘lethal lies and incompetence’ in new ‘Vote Him Out’ ad

Air Force veteran and famed US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, best known for the “Miracle on the Hudson,” has made an ad urging citizens to vote President Donald Trump out of office

In the ad, produced by the Lincoln Project and VoteVets.org, Sullenberger says Americans have been called “to this moment” to “overcome his attacks on our very democracy.”

Sullenberger, drawing on his father’s World War II lessons in leadership and his own 53-year career as a pilot, “making flights you never heard about and one everyone heard about,” denounced Trump’s record as president.

“I knew serving causes greater than one self is the highest calling, and it’s in that highest calling of leadership that Donald Trump has failed us so miserably,” the former Danville resident said.  “Now it’s up to us to overcome his attacks on our very democracy, knowing nearly a quarter millions Americans won’t have a voice, casualties of his lethal lies and incompetence.”

The flight “everyone heard about” is when Sullenberger famously landed a jetliner on the Hudson River in 2009 after it hit a flock of geese and became disabled. The “casualties” he references are the American deaths from the coronavirus.

The Lincoln Project, an American political action committee formed by current and former anti-Trump Republicans, has produced other ads, including one called “Failure,” that criticized the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sullenberger’s participation in The Lincoln Project ad comes several weeks after he posted a series of tweets urging Americans to send Trump packing in November. Sullenberger’s tweets, in turn, came the day after the Atlantic magazine reported that Trump derided American service members killed in action as “losers” and “suckers.”

“For the first time in American history,” Sullenberger said in a tweet thread, “a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country.

“We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out,” Sullenberger said in the thread.

Sullenberger first spoke out against Trump, without naming him, during the 2018 mid-term elections when he penned an op-ed for the Washington Post. He described himself as someone who had been a registered Republican for much of his adult life, but he wrote, “I have always voted as an American” and denounced other Republicans who have been “cowardly” and enabled Trump.

“We cannot wait for someone to save us. We must do it ourselves,” Sullenberger wrote. He urged Americans to vote on election day for leaders “who are committed to the values that will unite and protect us.”

In the new Lincoln Project ad, Sullenberger didn’t hold back from naming Trump as he spoke about Americans needing to step up and exercise control by voting on election day.

“Eleven years ago, I was called to my moment,” he said in the ad. “Now we’re called to this moment. When you look down at our beautiful, boundless country, you don’t see political divisions.

“It reminds of us of who we are and what we can be,” Sullenberger continued. “That we are in control of this nation’s destiny. All we have to do is vote him out.”