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PLAYA DELRAY, FLa. (AP) – A new report details multiple cases in which President Donald Trump made disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including reference to Americans killed in the war in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. in France in 2018 as “losers” and “fools”.
Trump said Thursday that the story is “totally false.”
The allegations were first reported in The Atlantic. A senior Department of Defense official with first-hand knowledge of the events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was briefed on Trump’s comments confirmed some of the comments to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.
Defense officials said Trump made the comments when he begged her to visit the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting after his daily presidential briefing on the morning of November 10, 2018.
National Security Council and Secret Service personnel told Trump that the rainy weather made traveling by helicopter to the cemetery risky, but that they could drive there. Trump responded by saying he did not want to visit the cemetery because it was “full of losers,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The White House blamed the canceled visit on bad weather at the time.
In another conversation about the trip, The Atlantic said, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died at the Battle of Belleau Wood during World War I as “fools” for being killed.
Trump emphatically denied the Atlantic report Thursday night, calling it “an embarrassing situation” by a “terrible magazine.”
Speaking to reporters after his return to Washington from a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Trump said: “I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is no one who respects them more. No animal, no one, what animal would say such a thing? “
Trump also reiterated the White House explanation of why he did not visit the cemetery. “The helicopter couldn’t fly,” he said, due to the rain and fog. “The Secret Service told me you can’t do it. … They could never have made the police and everyone else queue for a president to pass through a very crowded and congested area. “
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said: “It is sad to see the depths that people will go to in the run-up to a presidential campaign to try to smear someone.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday: “If the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true, then they are another indicator of how deeply President Trump and I disagree on the role of the President of the United States.”
“Duty, honor, country – those are the values that drive our service members,” he said in a statement Thursday night, adding that if elected president, “I will make sure our American heroes know that I will stand behind them. and honor his sacrifice – always ”. Beau, Biden’s son, served in Iraq in 2008-09.
Defense officials also confirmed to the AP by reporting on The Atlantic that Trump on Memorial Day 2017 had gone with his chief of staff, John Kelly, to visit the grave of Kelly’s son in Arlington Cemetery, Robert, who he was assassinated in 2010 in Afghanistan, and he told Kelly: “I don’t understand. What was there for them? “
The senior Marine Corps officer and The Atlantic, citing sources with first-hand knowledge, also reported that Trump said he did not want to support the August 2018 funeral of Republican Senator John McCain, a decorated Navy veteran who spent years as Prisoner of Vietnam War, because he was a “loser”. The Atlantic also reported that Trump was angry that the flags were flying at half mast for McCain, saying, “What the hell are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser. “
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.”
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.
The magazine said Trump also referred to former President George HW Bush as a “loser” because he was shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.
