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US President Donald Trump has come under fire for reports that he mocked the country’s war dead as “fools” and “losers,” and Joe Biden, his main opponent in the upcoming presidential election, lo declared “unfit” for the commander in chief. paper.
Biden’s comments on Friday came as Trump again tried to dismiss the alleged comments as “false”, reported first by The Atlantic magazine and then by The Associated Press news agency.
His voice cracking, Biden told reporters in Delaware that they “know in their guts” 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 disgrace.”
Trump, in the Oval Office, said an apology was not necessary, because it was a “false story.”
The allegations, obtained anonymously, describe multiple offensive remarks by the president towards US service members killed and captured during a trip to France in November 2018.
On the morning of a scheduled visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Trump reportedly told senior staff, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s full of losers.” The White House later said the visit was canceled because foggy weather made the helicopter ride from Paris too risky and a 90-minute trip was deemed unfeasible.
The Atlantic also said that Trump, in a separate conversation on the same trip, referred to more than 1,800 American soldiers who died during the ensuing 1918 battle at Belleau Wood as “fools” for being killed.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump denied making any such comments. “It was terrible that someone could say such things, and especially to me, because I have done more for the military than almost anyone.”
Later, at a news conference, Trump suggested that the source of the story was his former chief of staff, retired Navy Gen. John Kelly. “It could have been a guy like John Kelly,” Trump told reporters, saying his former senior assistant “couldn’t handle the pressure of this job.”
‘You are not a patriot’
But that denial was met with skepticism, and critics seized on media reports to shed new light on Trump’s earlier public disparagement of US troops and military families.
That includes his criticism of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, a decorated Naval officer who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said of McCain in 2015. He had also said at the time, “I like people who weren’t caught.”
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 he would “take my titanium wheelchair and legs over Donald Trump’s alleged bone spurs any day.”
Khizr Khan, whose son, Humayun, was killed in action in Iraq in 2004, he joined Duckworth on the call and said that “Trump’s life is a testament to selfishness.”
Khan, who drew national attention after criticizing Trump during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, added: “The words we speak are windows to our souls. So when Donald Trump calls anyone a loser who puts his life in the service of others, we understand the soul of Trump. “
Veterans also condemned the president’s alleged comments.
Paul Eaton, a retired major general, said in a Twitter video that Trump had shown “disrespect to the military countless times,” adding: “You are not a patriot.”
Read Jeff Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic. How could anyone support Trump? pic.twitter.com/xqfnklmCBq
– Major General (Retired) Paul Eaton (@ PaulDEaton52) September 4, 2020
VoteVets posted a video online in which six families of American soldiers who died while on duty criticized Trump, each declaring that their children were neither losers nor fools. “You don’t know what it is to sacrifice,” said a father.
Donald Trump called our fallen troops “fools” and “losers.”
They cannot speak for themselves, but these 6 Gold Star families speak for our fallen.
Here’s your POWERFUL message.#GoldStarParentsAgainstTrump #VeteransAgainstTrump pic.twitter.com/ZnbFevqkNR– VoteVets (@votevets) September 4, 2020
Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Alexandria in the U.S. state of Virginia, said Trump’s alleged comments had been confirmed by multiple media outlets.
“This story is not going away, because now, various news outlets here in Washington have confirmed the same scope and the same quotes that were in that story. That includes Fox News, which has been the president’s television news network.”
Jordan was referring to reports from Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, who said that two former Trump administration officials had confirmed The Atlantic reports.
According to a former senior Trump administration official: “When the president spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Whoever it was was an idiot.’
– Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 4, 2020
‘This never happened’
Trump supporters, for their part, took to TV and social media to defend the president, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox and 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.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper issued a statement saying that “Trump has the utmost respect and admiration for our nation’s military members, veterans, and families” and “has fought for higher pay and more funding “for the armed forces.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was the White House press secretary at the time of Trump’s visit, said of The Atlantic report: “I was there and one of the people who participated in the discussion, this never happened.”
These were some of the moments I witnessed the president show his heart and show how much he respects the selfless and courageous men and women of our military. I am disgusted by this fake attack.
– Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) September 4, 2020
First lady Melania Trump also defended her husband, issuing a rare public statement, calling Trump’s alleged mockery of the US war “false” and criticizing The Atlantic’s reliance on anonymous sources.
Mike Pence, the vice president, said he was not in Paris, but “it never happened.”
He told CNBC: “Americans just roll their eyes at these late-impact, anonymous sources outlets coming from The Atlantic or elsewhere. It’s just political as usual.”
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