Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Trump has a history. That can't be dismissed. McCain. Lies. And one major
fact for me. If Kelly could get to the cemetery by car, why couldn't Trump?

Did Trump call US war dead “losers” and “suckers”? The controversy, explained.

It’s the word of reporters relaying what unnamed people are saying against the word of untrustworthy people being open about where they stand.

By Alex Ward @AlexWardVox [e-mail] Sep 4, 2020, 1:00pm EDT

[...]

Just take a moment to let that sink in. It’s the head of a top US magazine reporting that the American president chose not to honor US war dead because of vanity and because he feels anyone who died in combat — even during an important fight for Marines during World War I — is a “loser” or “sucker.” That alone is a stunning development that could be very damaging to Trump, although partisanship appears very strong in 2020.

But two items deserve further mention here.

First, the Atlantic’s sources for those scenes are “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.” It’s unclear from that attribution whether they actually heard Trump say those comments directly, or if they heard about his remarks from someone who did.

That lack of specificity may be to protect the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. After all, if Goldberg wrote “according to four people to whom Trump made those remarks,” then it’d be pretty easy for the administration to identify those people. Plus, without not-for-attribution reporting, some misdeeds or scandals wouldn’t come to light for fear of retribution. Still, not knowing exactly who heard what — with none of the sources on the record — muddies the picture.

Second, and more importantly, there’s evidence to suggest Trump’s decision not to travel to the cemetery had nothing to do with his hair.

Documents obtained by BuzzFeed News’s Jason Leopold via the Freedom of Information Act seem to show the US Navy canceled Trump’s helicopter ride to the cemetery due to the bad weather. An email obtained by the Washington Examiner on Thursday night, relayed to the outlet by an unnamed White House official with the sender’s and receiver’s names redacted, appeared to confirm a “BAD [weather] call” had been made.

[...]

Other accounts don’t place the blame on Trump. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Zachary Fuentes, a deputy White House chief of staff at the time, was the one who decided Trump shouldn’t travel by helicopter and assured the president it was okay to miss the event. And former National Security Adviser John Bolton wrote in his deeply unflattering-to-Trump book that the president didn’t go to the cemetery solely because of poor conditions:

[...]

Bolton is referring to the fact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron went to the cemetery despite the weather, and were joined by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly after he was driven to the site. However, the president did give a speech in Suresnes, France, the next day during a ceremony hosted by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

[...]

The canceled trip isn’t the only scene the Atlantic reported on. Here’s a quick list with the main revelations:

* During that same trip, Trump asked his staff, “Who were the good guys in this war?” — that is, World War I — and why the US would intervene to help allies during the fight.

* Per three unnamed sources “with direct knowledge,” Trump didn’t want his administration to support McCain’s funeral (to which the president wasn’t invited). “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” Trump told aides, and then got upset when he saw flags at half-mast: “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser.”

* Three unnamed sources “with direct knowledge” also confirm that Trump — on at least two occasions — referred to former President George H.W. Bush as a “loser” for getting shot down as a Navy pilot in Japan during World War II.

The McCain part has an on-the-record defender. Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019, tweeted Friday morning that Trump’s staff told him the president was angry about the lowered flags. (Taylor has endorsed Biden.)

[...]

Three other outlets confirm much of the Atlantic’s reporting

Hours after the Atlantic story broke, the Associated Press had two unnamed sources — a senior Defense Department official and senior Marine Corps officer — confirm the report. Per the AP, Trump decided not to visit the cemetery in France after receiving his daily briefing on November 10, 2018, the day of the planned trip. And while members of the National Security Council and the Secret Service told Trump he could still drive to the site, Trump said no because the cemetery was “filled with losers.”

That’s important, as the AP’s reporting backs what the Atlantic revealed: Trump, during the morning of the scheduled visit, decided not to visit the war memorial and cemetery solely because he didn’t respect who was buried there.

The Washington Post broadly confirmed Trump’s feelings on US war dead. On Thursday night, the paper had an unnamed former senior administration official confirm that Trump “frequently made disparaging comments about veterans and soldiers missing in action, referring to them at times as ‘losers.’”

The Post’s story then added some context:

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In one account, the president told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly and gotten caught and deserved what they got, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Trump believed people who served in the Vietnam War must be “losers” because they hadn’t gotten out of it, according to a person familiar with the comments. Trump also complained bitterly to then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that he didn’t understand why Kelly and others in the military treated McCain, who had been imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam War, with such reverence. “Isn’t he kind of a loser?” Trump asked, according to the person familiar with Trump’s comments.
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Trump’s animosity toward McCain is well known. In 2015, Trump derided McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.” That’s something he said live, on the record, on video — not in private or disclosed by an anonymous source.

https://www.vox.com/2020/9/4/21422733/atlantic-trump-military-suckers-losers-explained