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The US president has dismissed the reports as “fake news.”
US President Donald Trump is facing a backlash over reports that he mocked US soldiers killed in action as “losers” and “fools.”
The alleged comments were first published in Atlantic magazine, and the Associated Press and Fox News corroborated some details.
But the president and his allies have denied that he made the comments.
Veteran groups were among those who attacked the president for the reports.
Progressive group votes posted a video of families whose children were killed in action. “You don’t know what it is to sacrifice,” says one.
Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted: “Who is really surprised by this?”
Analysts say the comments could prove damaging, as the president needs the support of military voters as he runs for re-election.
What is Trump said to have said?
According to The Atlantic, Trump canceled a visit to an American cemetery outside Paris in 2018 because he said it was “full of losers.”
Four sources told the magazine that they rejected the idea of visiting him because the rain would ruffle his hair and they did not think it was important to honor the dead of the US war.
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During the same trip, the president allegedly also referred to 1,800 American soldiers who died at Belleau Wood as “fools.” The battle helped prevent a German advance on Paris during World War I and is revered by the US Marine Corps.
In 2018, the White House said the visit was canceled because bad weather had grounded the president’s helicopter. This account was backed up in a recent book by President Trump’s former National Security adviser John Bolton, who has been a vocal critic of Trump.
The Atlantic report relied on anonymous sources, but the Associated Press said it had independently confirmed many of the comments. A Fox News correspondent said he had corroborated some of the comments.
What has been the reaction?
In addition to comments from veterans, President Trump’s challenger in the November presidential election, Joe Biden, responded by saying that his rival was “unfit” to lead.
“If the article is true, and it appears to be, based on other things he has said, it is absolutely damning. It is a disgrace.”
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Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who lost both legs while serving in Iraq, said President Trump “liked to use the US military for his own ego.”
Khizr Khan, the father of an American soldier killed in Iraq who criticized Trump during the 2016 Democratic convention, joined Duckworth on the call.
He said: “When Donald Trump calls anyone who puts his life at the service of others a loser, we understand Trump’s soul.”
How is the White House fighting history?
President Trump has forcefully rejected the reports, calling them “fake news.”
“To think that I would make negative statements to our military and our fallen heroes when nobody has done what I did with the budgets, with the military budgets, with the salary increases of our military,” he said. “It is a shameful situation for a magazine that is a terrible magazine.”
Speaking to reporters on Friday, he suggested the source of the story was his former White House chief of staff, John Kelly. Trump said the former US Marine Corps general “couldn’t handle the pressure of this job.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Friday morning that he was with the president for much of the trip to France and that he never heard him use the words described in the article.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper was quoted by Politico as saying that Trump had “the utmost respect and admiration for our nation’s military, veterans and families,” although the Pentagon chief did not explicitly deny the story.
Another former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders were among those in Trump’s orbit and dismissed the story as false.
Where are Trump and the US military?
The US president has often called for strong support among the military, and the Pew Research Center last year found that veterans generally supported him as commander-in-chief, with 57% in favor. Three-fifths of veterans identified as Republicans, the research found.
But there have been previous discussions and controversies.
He caused outrage by saying that the late Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was not a “war hero” and said: “I like people who were not captured.”
President Trump has never been in uniform. He received five deferrals from a military draft during the Vietnam War: four for academic reasons and one for bone spurs, a buildup of calcium in the heels.
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