DELRAY BEACH, FLa. (AP) — President Donald Trump is angrily denying a report that he made disparaging remarks about U.S. service members who have been captured or killed, including that he described American war dead at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018 as “losers” and “suckers.”
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“This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!” Trump tweeted late Thursday.
The allegations were reported in The Atlantic. A senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.
The White House swiftly mounted a concerted defense of the president, with Trump’s campaign and allies taking to social media and broadcast interviews to denounce the report.
In the article, defense officials said Trump made the comments as he begged off visiting the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting following his presidential daily briefing on the morning of Nov. 10, 2018.
Staffers from the National Security Council and the Secret Service told Trump that rainy weather made helicopter travel to the cemetery risky, but they could drive there. Trump responded by saying he didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The White House blamed the canceled visit on poor weather at the time.
In another conversation on the trip, The Atlantic said, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died in the World War I battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Trump, who traveled to Pennsylvania on Thursday, told reporters after he returned to Washington that the Atlantic report was “a disgraceful situation” by a “terrible magazine.”
“I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes,” Trump told the reporters, gathered on the tarmac in the dark. “There is nobody that respects them more. No animal — nobody — what animal would say such a thing?”
Trump also reiterated the White House explanation of why he didn’t visit the cemetery. “The helicopter could not fly,” he said, because of the rain and fog. “The Secret Service told me you can’t do it. … They would never have been able to get the police and everybody else in line to have a president go through a very crowded, very congested area.”
“It’s sad the depths that people will go to during a lead-up to a presidential campaign to try to smear somebody,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that he was with the president for a a good part of the trip to France. “I never heard him use the words that are described in that article,” Pompeo said.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that she was part of the discussion about visiting the cemetery. “This never happened. I have sat in the room when our President called family members after their sons were killed in action and it was heart-wrenching. … I am disgusted by this false attack.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said that “if the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true, then they are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States.”
“Duty, honor, country — those are the values that drive our service members,” Biden said in a statement Thursday night, adding that if he is elected president, “I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.” Biden’s son Beau served in Iraq in 2008-09.
The Defense officials also confirmed to The AP reporting in The Atlantic that Trump on Memorial Day 2017 had gone with his chief of staff, John Kelly, to visit the Arlington Cemetery gravesite of Kelly’s son, Robert, who was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan, and said to Kelly: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
The senior Marine Corps officer and The Atlantic, citing sources with firsthand knowledge, also reported that Trump said he didn’t want to support the August 2018 funeral of Republican Sen. John McCain, a decorated Navy veteran who spent years as a Vietnam prisoner of war, because he was a “loser.” The Atlantic also reported that Trump was angered that flags were flown at half-staff for McCain, saying: “What the f—- are we doing that for? Guy was a f—-ing loser.”
Trump acknowledged Thursday he was “never a fan” of McCain and disagreed with him, but said he still respected him and approved everything to do with his “first-class triple-A funeral” without hesitation because “I felt he deserved it.”
In 2015, shortly after launching his presidential candidacy, Trump publicly blasted McCain, saying “He’s not a war hero.” He added, “I like people who weren’t captured.”
Trump only amplified his criticism of McCain as the Arizona lawmaker grew critical of his acerbic style of politics, culminating in a late-night “no” vote scuttling Trump’s plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That vote shattered what few partisan loyalties bound 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 H.W. Bush as a “loser” because he was shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.
Consider the source of this fake news – “four unnamed sources.” The President immediately came out and explained the timing of the event that day. To come out with these reports two months before the election is more than suspect. It seems more outlandish that he asked to keep wounded veterans out of the memorial is another attempt to smear him – totally out of control. For the record, citizen Trump donated 2 million dollars to a veterans’ parade as there was no money to fund it at the time. Those four unnamed sources most likely disgruntled generals (Kelly I heard is one of them). There has never been such a libelous, smear campaign against a sitting President and his family in history. Ironically, when he had the hit show The Apprentice, Donald Trump was adored by the media. This latest attack really smells like democratic rats taking whatever shots could stick.
In other news, WAPO is reporting from credible sources, that the president routinely orders and even participates in killings of innocent christian babies to obtain blood to bake matzos for his daughter and son in law. CNN reports that some of these babies are muslim!
Fake news. Another anonymous whistleblower. This is why anyone with a half a brain distrusts so-called journalists. If someone doesn’t have the guts to come forward and give his/her name, they shouldn’t be given any credence whatsoever.
WAPO is one of the slime media that gushed Russian Collusion for 3 years. WAPO is a lying piece of chara as are all MM.
Another desperate ploy to dethrone Trump , especially because he’s done so much for the military.
WAPO now paying millions $$ to Sandman for libeling him .For defaming and smearing him.
The Benghazi murderess Hillary , is still free. Luck of a skunk.
Mattis and his ilk’s fingerprints all over it.
The warmonging generals and their club who hate Trump and who signed up to take him out.
This is all plotted and planned and $$$ behind it.
Doesn’t anybody see ?
They’re working 30/7 like delirious rats to poison Trump and us at any , and all costs.
The secret service admitted to destroying all records pertaining to a 2009 incident where a secret service got into an altercation with Groper Joe and had to be stopped from hitting the then VP after Groper Joe groped the agents girlfriend and they had to end the annual VP christmas party because Groper Joe would grope all the agents wives and girlfriends.
Even Bolton denies the story.
Fake accursed Trump haters sneaked out of the sewers.
A cruel fabrication by an anonymous swine , just like the rest of them.
It’s now falling apart by the minute.
We dare not elect the unclean tamei DemonRat ticket , and must battle their attempted robbery on Election Day.
Any Jew who votes for them is a RODEF !!!
These subhuman creatures will sink to anything to lie about our prez.
Biden’s reaction was to a reporter from Atlantic who was fed the question by Biden’s handlers who pointed to him first to ask the question.
This is a cadre of animals who have smeared Trump from day #1 and lost each and every time.
Subhuman creatures lying again.
Vile humanoids desperate as they sink into their own excrement.
Cowards
Is this impeachable? Where there’s smoke there’s fire. I’ll have my staffers look into this.
Sounds like another Dossier fakery , which was pushed by that brutal punk , John McCain & gang.
Vindman is an arrogant traitor.
In any other era , he would have been sent to scaffolds. Or electric chair.
What wasted time and defenses here.
Millions and millions will reelect the 3rd greatest president in US history.
And there’s nothing the stinking criminals , swamp ,filthy mefda and devil Dems can do about it.
The Atlantic magazine has been a hate Trump magazine from before he was elected, and has continued in that since. Everything they write about Trump, and many other things, is always twisted for ideological reasons.
There are many named witnesses who were who deny that the Atlantic report is true. Unfortunately, the NY Times and other haters of Trump love this, even though it is all anonymous.
It hardly matters. The President can say whatever he likes and it will not impact his support.
This news story is not going away; Trump had the gall to call Jennifer Griffin of Fox News a “slimeball”, and called for her to be fired, since she backed the sources for this story. Jennifer Griffin reported for Fox for many years from Jerusalem, and has been very fair in her reporting, regarding Israel. She suffered a personal health crisis, but miraculously survived, and went back to work for Fox, by reporting from Afghanistan. However, Trump tries to destroy anyone who disagrees with him, or stands up to him. In fact, yesterday, he spoke harshly about General Kelly, who never even commented on this story. General Kelly was a decorated, proud U.S. Marine Lt. General, who served his country for over thirty seven years. Yet, Trump disparaged him, as well as General Mathis and General McMaster. I’m afraid that this time, Trump has met his Waterloo. This story, unlike the Hollywood Access tape, is not going away. The public is getting tired of his lies; as Mayor Koch once stated “I wouldn’t believe anything Donald Trump says, even if his tongue was notarized”.
How many times can he say something on video then claim he didn’t say it or it’s a hoax?? To many to even count and not just on this one issue. The man has lied over 20,000 times since he took office. The boy that cried wolf ended up not being believed… Open your eyes!
He also is attacking Fox news correspondent saying She should be fired. Trump said she didn’t confirm the most salacious parts of story. Again admitting the story is true. He is also supposed to be against cancel culture. He has insulted two four star generals in mattis and Kelly, yet he supports the military.
Trump claims he “called home, I spoke to my wife and I said ‘I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony.'”
Facts First: Melania Trump was on the same trip with Trump and was scheduled to attend the cemetery visit. She was not in the U.S
Good people should not defend a bad man.
As bad as Biden is, Trump is much worse. It’s a shanda and a charpa how frum yidden are supporting a courrupt, philandering pathological liar who has absolutely no shame. And people wonder where the anti semitism comes from. Lamah yomru hagoyim??
Agree. Good people should not defend a bad man, and with such vileness and name calling. The disparaging of the people you disagree with is not the right way, but Trump loves it.
It has also been reported that Trump disparaged the late President George Herbert Walker Bush, for his Navy fighter aircraft being shot down near the Japanese island of Chici Jima, in 1945, during World War Two. Bush was bombing a radar installation on that island, when his plane was hit. He bailed out, and almost drowned while waiting to be picked up by a submarine. The Japanese were actively looking for him, and probably would have killed him, if they found him, as they did with other American pilots. Fortunately, an American submarine rescued him. I’ve seen the home movie of the rescue, taken by a sailor on the submarine. Here was a case of an American pilot who bravely did his duty, yet Trump still called him a “loser” for being shot down. To this date, neither Trump, nor his staff in the White House, have never denied that he made those demeaning remarks. Thus, if he could make those remarks about Bush #41 , it seems logical that he made similar remarks for service members, who did not survive.