Two Arizona congresswomen are at the center of 2018’s closest Senate race, and it may be decided because one of them refuses to apologize for a remark she made in 2003 while the other was being shot at in Afghanistan flying combat missions against the Taliban.

“This is personal for those of us who served and actually fought against the Taliban,” Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “I was a squadron commander over there with my A-10 squadron. We were getting shot at by the Taliban. The Taliban was killing Americans.”

“And I tell you, Chris, the worst days we had at Bagram Air Force Base when I was a commander [were] when an American gave their last breath fighting for our freedom and was killed by someone from the Taliban or their affiliates.”

McSally (pictured above right) — who was the first American woman combat pilot to fly in combat — was referring to an answer given in a 2003 radio interview by Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) when asked her view of Americans going to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban.

“I don’t care if you want to do that,” replied Sinema (above left), who was a left-wing Arizona political activist at the time.

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McSally demanded during a televised debate earlier this week that Sinema apologize to her and all other veterans who served in Afghanistan.

Sinema merely replied by saying “Martha has chosen to run a campaign like the one you’re seeing right now where she’s engaging in ridiculous attacks and smearing my campaign.”

McSally leads Sinema, according to the most recent polls, but by the narrowest of margins, 46 percent to 45.3 percent. President Donald Trump campaigned hard for McSally, hosting a Make America Great Again rally in Mesa, Arizona, on Friday.

Wallace invited both candidates to appear Sunday, but Sinema declined.

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When Wallace asked McSally if she “really believes Kyrsten Sinema was approving treason?”

McSally responded, “Well, it’s her words, Chris, it’s totally out of step with American values when she clearly says in this radio interview that she has no problem with an American going to join the Taliban … this just shows she’s disqualified to be a United States senator.”

Wallace noted that Sinema argued that she was only trying to redirect the interviewer’s question so that she could talk about her opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Iraq War at the time.

But McSally insisted Sinema meant what she said and should apologize. “Look, she continues to make excuses, but she’s yet to make an apology, but this is a pattern for my opponent.”

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“Right after 9/11, a moment when the country was unified in our healing and our mourning, but also united in believing we’ve got to go after the Taliban, who harbored Al-Qaida, who killed 3,000 Americans.”

McSally continued: “Kyrsten Sinema was protesting right after 9/11 against any military action against terrorists. She was protesting later in a pink tutu. She was leading protests, inviting anarchists, socialists, others, handing out flyers at her protests depicting American soldiers as skeletons and saying we’re the ones conducting terror in the Middle East.”

Wallace asked McSally to respond to Sinema’s charge that the Republican congresswoman voted for a measure repealing and replacing Obamacare that would have allowed sales of health insurance policies charging a higher premium for people with pre-existing conditions.

“Chris, I am passionate about protecting people with pre-existing conditions and forcing insurance companies to provide them with health insurance,” McSally said. “I voted to make sure that they had that coverage. This is a classic out of the Left, all over the country, the lies that they are perpetuating in order to play upon fear.”

“The reality is that Obamacare right now is not covering people with pre-existing conditions,” she continued. “We all know somebody who has diabetes or who is a cancer survivor or asthma who couldn’t get access to health insurance. But the Left’s intentions don’t equal policy outcomes.

McSally added: “I met an entrepreneur last week who decided to start a business, who has a pre-existing condition and can’t get coverage under Obamacare. So we’re trying to move toward a system that provides more options, more choices for people, that lowers the cost.”

Wallace then pointed out that Trump said during the Mesa rally that the caravan of migrant marchers now at Guatemala’s border with Mexico — the participants hoping to reach the U.S. border — have “some bad people in those groups. You’ve got some tough people in those groups and I’ll tell you, this country doesn’t want them.”

McSally said she shares “the president’s frustration that the Democrats are obstructing on this issue,” and she noted that her district in the southern part of Arizona includes 80 miles of the border with Mexico.

“We’ve got fifth-generation ranchers that are on the border right now dealing with the cartels, dealing with the traffic, opioids and other illegal drugs, and human trafficking. This is a public safety and a national security issue.”

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Krysten Sinema, CC BY-SA 2.0, Cropped, by Gage Skidmore)