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Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, speaks in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday, Sept. 4, 2020 (AP Photo / Carolyn Kaster).
WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declared President Donald Trump “unfit” for the presidency on Friday, giving a passionate reaction to a report that Trump, who never served in uniform, allegedly mocked Americans killed in the war.
The president and his allies have dismissed The Atlantic report as false.
The allegations, obtained anonymously, describe multiple offensive remarks by the president toward fallen and captured American service members, including naming the World War I dead in an American military cemetery in France as “losers” and “fools” in 2018. .
The reported comments, many of which were independently confirmed by the AP, are shedding new light on Trump’s previous public disparagement of US troops and military families. That opens up a new political vulnerability for the president less than two months before election day.
His voice cracking, Biden told reporters they “already know deep down” that Trump’s comments, if true, are “deplorable.”
“I have never been so disappointed, in my entire career, with a leader that I have worked with, president or not,” added Biden. “If the article is true, and it appears to be, based on other things he has said, it is absolutely damning. It is a shame “.
He added that “the President should humbly apologize to every Gold Star mother and father, to every Blue Star family that he has denigrated … Who the hell does he think he is?”
Trump, in the Oval Office, said an apology was not necessary, because it was a “false story.”
Trump is alleged to have made the comments in November 2018, when he was scheduled to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery during a trip to France. The White House said the visit was canceled because misty weather made the helicopter ride from Paris too risky and a 90-minute trip was deemed unfeasible.
Speaking Friday in the Oval Office, Trump denied making such comments: “It was a terrible thing that someone could say that kind of thing, and especially to me because I have done more for the military than almost anyone else.”
Biden’s criticism was personal. The former vice president often speaks of his pride in his late son Beau’s service in the Delaware Army National Guard. As he spoke, Biden grew angry and raised his voice to refute Trump’s alleged comments that the Marines who died in the battle were “dumb” to be killed.
“When my son was a deputy federal prosecutor and volunteered to go to Kosovo when the war was ongoing, as a civilian, he was no fool,” Biden declared.
“When my son volunteered to join the United States Army as attorney general, he went to Iraq for a year, he won the Bronze Star and other accolades, he was not a fool!”
Beau Biden died of cancer in 2015.
Returning to Washington from a Thursday visit to Pennsylvania, Trump told reporters that the Atlantic report was “an embarrassing situation” from a “terrible magazine.”
“I would be willing to swear by anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes,” Trump told reporters, gathered on the track in the dark. “There is no one who respects them more. No animal, no one, what animal would say such a thing?
Biden has framed the election from the outset as a referendum on Trump’s character. His allies were quick to seize on the reported comments in the hope that they could drive a wedge between military families and veterans and Trump. They also believe the issue could help win over disgruntled Republican voters who are fed up with Trump’s constant controversies.
In particular, Biden’s team believes that his well-documented experience, both personally and politically, with military problems could help him move forward with a population that broadly supported Trump in the 2016 election and could help influence this year’s election. in several close changes. state. Biden himself has not served in the military.
Military families broadly supported Trump in the 2016 election, and a Pew Research Center poll of veterans conducted in June 2019 found overall that veterans were more supportive of Trump than the general public, and that approximately 60% of veterans surveyed identified as Republicans.
In a call with reporters organized by the Biden campaign on Friday, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth criticized Trump for “disparaging the sacrifices of those who have shown more courage than he is capable of.”
Duckworth, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who lost both legs in the Iraq war, has been a prominent critic of Trump’s handling of military affairs. Hitting Trump for allegedly fabricating an injury to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, Duckworth said that she would “take my wheelchair and my titanium legs over Donald Trump’s alleged bone spurs any day.”
Khizr Khan, the father of the Gold Star who garnered national attention after criticizing Trump during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, joined Duckworth on the call, saying that “Trump’s life is a testament to selfishness.”
“The words we say are windows to our souls. So when Donald Trump calls anyone who puts his life at the service of others a loser, we understand Trump’s soul, ”he said. Khan’s son Humayun was killed in action in Iraq in 2004.
In 2016, Trump responded to Khan’s criticism by stating that he himself had made his own sacrifices and made an Islamophobic attack on Khan’s wife, Ghazala Khan, who wore a headscarf at the Democratic convention, saying: “She It had nothing to say . Probably, maybe she was not allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”
Trump also denied calling the late Arizona Senator John McCain, a decorated Navy officer who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a “loser” after his death in August 2018.
Trump acknowledged Thursday that he was “never a fan” of McCain and disagreed with him, but said he still respected him and approved everything about his “first-class triple-A funeral” without hesitation because “I felt like he was. deserved “.
In 2015, shortly after launching his presidential bid, Trump publicly criticized McCain, saying he “is not a war hero.” He added: “I like people who were not caught.” At the time, Trump also shared a news article on Twitter calling McCain a “loser.”
Trump only amplified his criticism of McCain when the Arizona lawmaker became critical of his scathing style of politics, culminating in a late-night “no” vote that scuttled Trump’s plans to repeal the Care Act. of Health at Low Price. That vote shattered the few partisan loyalties that united the two men, and Trump has continued to attack McCain for that vote, even posthumously.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that he was with the president for much of the trip to France. “I never heard him use the words that are described in that article,” Pompeo said.
When asked on Friday about the possibility of seeing Trump when they are both in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks next week, Biden said: “I didn’t know I was going to go until after I announced it on my own. Of course.”
When asked if he would be willing to share the stage with Trump, he said: “Yes. He’s still the President of the United States of America. “
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