Nicholson says concern over veteran comments is "fake outrage"

U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson is responding to backlash he's received over comments he made about veterans.

Veterans spoke at a democratic press conference today and said Nicholson questioning the thought process of Democratc vets is divisive.

"What we used to say in the marine corps is we’re all green," Marine veteran Michael Balistriere said. "Meaning the uniform.”

They said Nicholson made a mistake questioning the “cognitive thought process” of democratic veterans on talk radio.

“We all served," Marine veteran Christian Ellis said. "We’re all patriots. We all believe in this country and signed up for the same reasons, and it’s really disappointing to me that somebody would accuse us, or not really accuse, but call us dumb. It’s insulting to me.”

The Delafield businessman running against state senator Leah Vukmir says his goal is to unseat incumbent Tammy Baldwin.

“it is my job in a campaign to question those ideas and those policies, and put forward better ideas.”

Nicholson is a veteran himself. His slogan is "send in the marine," and he won’t apologize.

“I think there are way too many people asking for apologies. It’s fake outrage, and it’s being done to cover the tracks of people who have made mistakes.”

He says the veteran comments are a distraction from real issues.

"Let’s look at what really happened today. President trump pulled us out of the Iran deal. A deal that Tammy Baldwin supported and Barack Obama pushed forward, which put billions of dollars into cargo plans, and sent it to a state sponsor of terror, that was actively killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The state Republican party will choose to either endorse Nicholson or state senator Leah Vukmir to run against Tammy Baldwin on Saturday.