Congressman Tim Burchett didn’t mince words on The Big Weekend Show — he warned Americans that what happened in Washington was a “calamity waiting to happen” and said we’d better wake up to the dangerous consequences of lax vetting. Burchett argued the slaughter of our troops outside the nation’s capital exposes the reckless immigration policies that installation crowds in Washington keep pretending are no big deal.
The ambush near Farragut Square on November 26 left two West Virginia National Guard members gravely wounded, and the country is still reeling from the idea that soldiers guarding the capital could be targeted on U.S. soil. The scene was chilling: America’s uniformed troops, doing their duty, became victims in a political firestorm the elites refuse to put out.
Early reporting indicates the suspect is an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome — the very program Washington sold as a humane evacuation plan but which, critics warned, opened backdoors and shortcuts in vetting. That connection is not academic; it’s precisely why Republicans who have long warned about porous policies are now demanding answers from the people who ran the program.
The federal response has been predictable: emergency freezes, promise-of-reviews, and a sudden scramble to look tough while they created the problem. The administration has already halted processing certain Afghan visas and announced reviews of vetting protocols, but those are reactive bandages — what we need is real, permanent reform to keep known risks out of our communities.
Burchett also tied the national security failure to his state’s politics, warning that Tennessee voters should care deeply about who controls policy in Washington because the consequences are literal — the safety of soldiers and citizens. He’s right: local races like Tennessee’s 7th district matter when the people elected in D.C. decide whether Americans come first or whether the next tragedy is acceptable collateral.
This is more than a partisan soundbite; it’s a test of whether our leaders will defend Americans or keep bowing to open-border orthodoxy. Conservatives must demand straight answers, tougher vetting, accountability for the failures, and justice for the fallen — and voters should remember these failures at the ballot box. America’s first duty is the safety of its citizens and soldiers, and anything less is a betrayal of everything patriotic.
