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- Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire his correspondent after she confirmed claims that the Republican leader had disparaged the military.
- Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin said two former administration officials had confirmed to her that the president “did not want to drive to honor the Americans killed in the war.”
- Trump came under fire after reports emerged that he had called the Marines killed in action in World War I “losers” and “fools.”
US President Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire his national security correspondent after she confirmed claims that the Republican leader had discredited the military, a bomb that has haunted him for two days.
Trump was criticized after The Atlantic magazine reported that he had called the Marines killed in action in World War I “losers” and “fools” in connection with a visit to France in November 2018 when he skipped a visit to a American military cemetery.
The official explanation for that missed visit was bad weather.
Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin said she had been confirmed by two former administration officials that the president “did not want to drive to honor war-killed Americans” at the Aisne-Marne cemetery outside Paris, which which implies that the weather was not a factor.
An official also told him that Trump had used the word “fool” to denigrate the military, but in a different context related to the Vietnam War.
“When the president spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Whoever it was was a fool,'” he quoted the anonymous official.
“It was a character flaw of the president. He couldn’t understand why someone was going to die for his country, it wasn’t worth it,” the source said.
An irate Trump tweeted Friday night: “Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this type of reporting. She didn’t even call us for comment. @FoxNews is gone!”
Trump has furiously defended himself in the wake of The Atlantic story, tweeting and retweeting stories that condemn it as “fake news.”
Fox News, usually friendly to Trump, has come under fire for seemingly neglecting the Griffin reports in its coverage of the story. A story on its cover Saturday was titled: “Sources Dispute Claim Trump Dismissed Military Cemetery Visit Out of Disdain for Murdered Veterans.”
Several of Griffin’s colleagues at Fox have publicly defended her on Twitter, along with Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who called her “fair and fearless.”
Just before The Atlantic ran its story, a poll by Military Times and the Syracuse College Institute for Veterans and Military Families found that only 37.4% of active duty personnel support Trump’s re-election bid, while that 43.1% support Joe Biden.
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