Trump: ‘Remarks on war dead fake news’
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is angrily denying a report that he made disparaging remarks about US service members who have been captured or killed, including that he described US war dead at the AisneMarne American Cemetery in France in 2018 as “losers” and “suckers”.
“This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!” Mr Trump tweeted.
The allegations were reported in The Atlantic.
A senior defence department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior US Marine Corps officer who was told about Mr Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.
The White House swiftly mounted a concerted defence of the president, with Mr Trump’s campaign and allies taking to social media and broadcast interviews to denounce the report. In the article, defence officials said Mr Trump made the comments as he cancelled visiting the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting following his presidential daily briefing on the morning of November 10, 2018.
Staffers from the National Security Council and the Secret Service told Mr Trump that rainy weather made helicopter travel to the cemetery risky, but they could drive there. Mr Trump responded by saying he did not want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers”, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to discuss it publicly.
The White House blamed the cancelled visit on poor weather at the time.
In another conversation on the trip, The Atlantic said, Mr Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died in the First World War battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Mr Trump 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,” Mr Trump told the reporters, gathered on the tarmac in the dark.
Mr Trump also reiterated the White House explanation of why he did not 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.”
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said: “It’s sad the depths that people will go to during a leadup to a presidential campaign to try to smear somebody.”