Kirk stirs controversy at Senate debate

Posted on October 28, 2016
Tammy Duckworth and Mark Kirk
U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth took part in a Senate debate with U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk in Springfield on Thursday. (WJBC file photos)

By RFD Radio/WFMB

SPRINGFIELD – The candidate for US Senate squared off in a televised debate in Springfield on Thursday.

Incumbent Republican Mark Kirk is taking heat for a comment made towards Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth. She said that she was daughter of the American Revolution and proud her history serving the nation and would want to part of any decision to send troops into battle.

Kirk quipped “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

A spokesperson for the Democratic state central committee called the remark “offensive, wrong, and racist.”

Duckworth’s mother is from Thailand but her she traces her father’s family ancestors back to the earliest days of the country.

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