The head of the Boy Scouts of America apologized Thursday to the organization’s members, telling them that the group did not intend to showcase the “political rhetoric” in President Trump’s speech to the National Jamboree earlier this week.
“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. That was never our intent,” Michael Surbaugh, the chief Scout executive for the group, wrote in a statement posted Thursday.
The speech, delivered Monday at a national gathering of Scouts, staff and volunteers in West Virginia, drew fire from critics who felt the president inappropriately brought partisan arguments to a typically nonpartisan setting — despite Trump’s early promise to “put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C.”
In the course of Trump’s remarks, the president called on his secretary of health and human services to “start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us.”
Tom Price “better get Sen. [Shelley Moore] Capito to vote for it,” Trump said, referencing the Republican senator from West Virginia. “He better get the other senators to vote for it. It’s time. You know, after seven years of saying ‘repeal and replace Obamacare,’ we have a chance to now do it. They better do it. Hopefully, they’ll do it.”
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