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US President Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire his national security correspondent after she confirmed claims that he 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 that skipped a visit. to a United States military cemetery.
Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin said Saturday that two former administration officials had confirmed to her that the president “did not want to drive to honor war-killed Americans” at the Aisne-Marne cemetery outside Paris. , 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 would die for his country, it wasn’t worth it,” said the source.
‘Slimeball Reporter’
Trump has furiously defended himself in the wake of The Atlantic story, tweeting and retweeting stories that condemn it as “fake news.”
“You work very hard for the military, from completely rebuilding a disaster left by OBiden, to repairing a broken VA and fighting for large-scale military pay increases, and then a dumb reporter, maybe working with disgruntled people, it makes up for such a horrible accusation, “an irate Trump tweeted on Saturday.
A day earlier, the President of the United States tweeted: “Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this type of reporting. She didn’t even call us for comment. @FoxNews left!”
You work so hard for the military, from completely rebuilding a mess that OBiden left behind, to fixing a broken VA and fighting for large-scale military pay raises, and then a dumb reporter, maybe working with disgruntled people, does all of that. horrible load ..
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2020
According to The Atlantic, in a conversation with senior officials on the morning of the visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that graveyard? It’s full of losers.”
The official explanation for that missed visit was bad weather.
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 website on Saturday was titled: “Sources dispute claim that Trump rejected military cemetery visit out of disdain for slain 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.”
“I can tell you that my sources are flawless,” Griffin said on air on his network Saturday. “My sources are not anonymous to me and I doubt they are anonymous to the president.”
Just before The Atlantic published its story, a poll conducted by the Military Times and the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families found that only 37.4 percent of active duty personnel support the re-election bid for Trump, while 43.1 percent back Joe Biden.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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