- 04 Sep 2020 22:25
#15117570
Trump confronted a political crisis on Friday that could undercut badly needed support in the military community for his re-election campaign as he sought to dispute a report that he privately referred to American soldiers killed in combat as “losers” and “suckers.” The report in The Atlantic by its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said that Mr. Trump decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers killed in World War I during a 2018 visit to France because the rain would have mussed his hair and because he did not believe it was important to honor the war dead. During a conversation with senior officials that day, according to the magazine, Mr. Trump said: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” On the same trip, the article said, he referred to American Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
The article also said that Mr. Trump’s well-known antipathy for Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and a Vietnam War hero, was on display after the senator’s death in August 2018. “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” the article quotes Mr. Trump telling his staff. He became furious at seeing flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides, according to the article. Mr. Trump famously mocked the senator’s military service and five and a half years in captivity in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” Mr. Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
People familiar with Mr. Trump’s private conversations say he has long scorned those who served in Vietnam as being too dumb to have gotten out of it, as he did through a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. At other times, according to those familiar with the remarks, Mr. Trump would marvel at people choosing military service over making money.
As to Belleau Woods...all the other leaders made it. But someone says Trump couldn’t make it because it would have been a two hour trip in his luxury limo? Lord, what better thing did he have to do over there? Watch Fox in his bathrobe? Play golf? Tweet? Have his hair done?
The article also said that Mr. Trump’s well-known antipathy for Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and a Vietnam War hero, was on display after the senator’s death in August 2018. “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” the article quotes Mr. Trump telling his staff. He became furious at seeing flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides, according to the article. Mr. Trump famously mocked the senator’s military service and five and a half years in captivity in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” Mr. Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
People familiar with Mr. Trump’s private conversations say he has long scorned those who served in Vietnam as being too dumb to have gotten out of it, as he did through a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. At other times, according to those familiar with the remarks, Mr. Trump would marvel at people choosing military service over making money.
As to Belleau Woods...all the other leaders made it. But someone says Trump couldn’t make it because it would have been a two hour trip in his luxury limo? Lord, what better thing did he have to do over there? Watch Fox in his bathrobe? Play golf? Tweet? Have his hair done?
"Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine." Virginia Woolf 1897