Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that there was \u201cno conflict\u201d or \u201cfighting\u201d when he visited Arlington National Cemetery last week, despite multiple reports of an altercation involving Trump campaign staff at the cemetery.<\/p>\n
Trump was at the cemetery Aug. 26 to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops during the evacuation of Afghanistan. Trump and his staff defied requests from cemetery officials to avoid taking photos or videos among the gravestones, with the aim of adhering to a federal law that forbids campaign activities at military cemeteries. A female cemetery worker was \u201cabruptly pushed aside\u201d by male Trump aides as she sought to enforce the guidelines, cemetery officials said.<\/p>\n
In a post shared on Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed that reports of the altercation were \u201cmade up\u201d by Vice President Kamala Harris, who had no involvement in the Republican candidate\u2019s visit. The altercation has been confirmed by both Arlington National Cemetery \u2014 which in a statement said \u201cthere was an incident, and a report was filed\u201d \u2014 and U.S. Army officials.<\/p>\n
But in his post Tuesday, Trump claimed without evidence that Harris \u201cmade it all up\u201d because she wanted to \u201cmake up for the fact\u201d that the Biden-Harris administration pushed for what he called an \u201cINCOMPETENT\u201d withdrawal from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
While Trump denies that an altercation took place during his visit, Department of Defense officials have said a cemetery staff member sought to enforce guidelines the campaign had received not to take photos and videos near the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years \u2014 an area known as Section 60 \u2014 because federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries.<\/p>\n
During the incident, which was first reported by NPR, the employee tried to enforce the rules by blocking Trump\u2019s team from bringing cameras to the graves, according to a senior defense official and another person briefed on the incident. A larger male Trump campaign aide insisted that the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee, leaving her stunned.<\/p>\n
Trump and his campaign have been criticized for the incident.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Army 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain \u2014 son of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain \u2014 told CNN that he viewed Trump\u2019s visit to the cemetery as a \u201cviolation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just blows me away,\u201d the younger McCain, who has served in the military for 17 years, said. \u201cThese men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice\u201d of whether to be a backdrop for Trump\u2019s political campaign.<\/p>\n
John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, was a U.S. Navy captain who was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for five and a half years. The decorated veteran served in the U.S. House and Senate for years. He died in August 2018 and is buried at the U.S. Naval Academy.<\/p>\n
John McCain\u2019s father, John Sidney McCain Jr., and grandfather, John Sidney McCain Sr., were U.S. Navy admirals. They are both buried at Arlington National Cemetery.<\/p>\n
John McCain has long been one of Trump\u2019s top targets for criticism. During the 2016 campaign, Trump said McCain was \u201cnot a war hero\u201d because he had been captured after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. In 2019, after McCain\u2019s death, Trump said McCain \u201cdidn\u2019t get the job done\u201d for veterans and complained that he did not receive proper gratitude for McCain\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n
In his interview with CNN, Jimmy McCain \u2014 who currently serves as an intelligence officer in the 158th Infantry Regiment \u2014 said that those who have \u201cdone a lot of time in their uniform\u201d inherently understand that Arlington National Cemetery is \u201cnot about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country,\u201d he said. The younger McCain told CNN that, just a few weeks ago, he changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a violation,\u201d McCain said. \u201cThat mother, that sister, those families, see that \u2014 and it\u2019s a painful experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
As The Washington Post has reported, Department of Defense officials were concerned about Trump\u2019s visit to the cemetery because Republicans have frequently used the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a political cudgel.<\/p>\n
While Defense officials and Arlington Cemetery leaders have said the altercation during Trump\u2019s visit did happen, the Trump campaign has insisted that it did not.<\/p>\n
Steven Cheung, Trump\u2019s spokesman, said that \u201cthere was no physical altercation as described,\u201d that the campaign was given permission to bring a photographer and that it is \u201cprepared to release footage\u201d to defend against \u201cdefamatory claims.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such footage has not yet been released, and Cheung did not immediately reply to a request for comment on this plan.<\/p>\n
Cheung also claimed without evidence that the employee was \u201csuffering from a mental health episode.\u201d Defense officials have said that the employee was trying to do her job and that the claim of a mental health episode was false.<\/p>\n
And Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita described reports of the altercation as a \u201c100% manufactured story\u201d and called members of the Army \u201chacks\u201d while sharing a video of Trump\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
In his post Tuesday, Trump said his visit to the cemetery \u201ccould not have been a nicer moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris said this past weekend that the former president \u201cdisrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.\u201d In response, the Trump campaign posted numerous videos in which family members of some of the 13 U.S. troops killed during a suicide bombing in the 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan accused President Joe Biden and Harris of killing their children by placing them in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that there was \u201cno conflict\u201d or \u201cfighting\u201d when he visited Arlington National Cemetery last week, despite multiple reports of an altercation involving Trump campaign staff at the cemetery. Trump was at the cemetery Aug. 26 to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}