Team, it’s been a weird couple weeks. 

In 1990, during Desert Storm, I was stationed on the USS Midway. I flew 39 combat missions over Iraq and Kuwait. I had a missile blow up next to my airplane, I was shot at dozens of times by anti-aircraft fire. If you had told me before one of those missions that 25 years later the President of the United States would call for me to be hanged, I would have said you were crazy. 

But that’s exactly what happened two weeks ago.

Sadly, this is the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from this president. He’s a person who can live through the same year we have — rising political violence, escalating tensions, assassinations — and go on to wish death upon sitting members of Congress. 

Yes, it was concerning, but more than anything, it’s incredibly sad. I served 25 years in the Navy, launched into orbit 4 times, and ran for Senate because I love this country. To me, there is nothing more American than standing up for our Constitution. 

Donald Trump will never understand that. He’ll never understand putting service to this country before yourself. He’s made billions of dollars off his presidency while millions of people are wondering how they’ll afford their health care, or how to feed their kids. 

He just doesn’t get it, and he never will. But that makes it even more important that people who do get it — people like you — stick together. That’s how we’ll get through this. 

There’s no telling what’s ahead of us. This is uncharted territory for me, for my family, for my team, and we have to be ready for anything. 

I wish I didn’t need to ask you to do any more than you already have, but today, that’s what I need to do. 

Can you split a donation between me and Michael Bennet to help raise the resources we’ll need to stand against Trump and anything he throws at us?

Again, I can’t thank you enough. It really means the world to me.

Mark