Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger spoke out in defense of Joe Biden after Lara Trump, President Trump’s daughter-in-law, mocked the former vice president’s stutter during a campaign event. In a New York Times op-ed published Saturday, Sullenberger wrote that he too had a stutter, and Lara’s words were “the very words that caused my childhood agony.” Sullenberger referenced his heroic landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in the op-ed as part of his journey to overcoming his stutter. “And on that frigid day in January 2009, when I had to tell the air traffic controller at New York Departure Control that I was about to land US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, after a bird strike following takeoff caused both engines to fail, my words came out with precision and control, even in the stress of a life-threatening emergency,” he wrote. He continued that the current “culture of cruelty” is what drives people from public service and participating in democracy, before bluntly calling on people who make fun of stutterers to “stop.” “Grow up. Show some decency. People who can’t have no place in public life,” he wrote, offering a message of hope to those currently dealing with a stutter: “A speech disorder is a lot easier to treat than a character defect.”
