Donald Trump demanded at his Las Vegas rally Sunday that President Joe Biden's campaign remove the accusation from a new ad that he has slammed U.S.troops killed in war "suckers" and "losers."
Trump insisted only a "psycho," a "crazy" person, or someone "very stupid" would say such a thing.
The Atlantic reported in 2020 that Trump skipped a commemoration of the US foreign war dead in 2018 at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, while he was visiting France as president because he didn't want to ruin his hair in the rain. Besides, he considered the dead in the cemetery "suckers" and "losers," the magazine reported, citing four unnamed sources.
His own chief of staff at the time, retired Gen. John Kelly, later confirmed Trump's comments.
But Trump on Sunday presented it as a preposterous idea.
"I'm standing there with generals and military people in a cemetery, and I look at them. I say, 'These people are suckers and losers.' Now think of it: Unless you're a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that?" Trump asked.
Again, Trump did not attend the ceremony, so he wasn't "standing with generals and military in a cemetery."
Trump has often disparaged the sacrifice of troops fighting a war. He criticized one-time presidential contender the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona for getting captured in Vietnam. McCain was shot down as a pilot in Vitenam, and spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war.
"He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured," Trump said of McCain.
Trump also reportedly referred to former President George H. W. Bush as a "loser" for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.
He has also compared the dangers of fighting in Vietnam to the "dangers" of dating and avoiding sexually transmitted disease, which was what he was doing during the war, he told shock jock Howard Stern in an infamous 1993 interview.
Trump called the sex scene my "own personal Vietnam," and smilingly referred to himself as a "great and very brave soldier." When Stern compared "vaginas" to "potential landmines," Trump responded: "There's some real danger there."
He added: "You know, if you're young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam, we have our own Vietnam; it's called the dating game," Trump told Stern. "Dating is like being in Vietnam. You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam."
Trump did not serve Vietnam after obtining a medical deferment citing "bone spurs" in his feet.
Trump claimed in his speech Sunday that "no one has done more for the military than I have."
There was no immediate comment from the Biden campaign on Trump complaint.
Here's the Biden ad:
Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country. pic.twitter.com/kls13Z8yHb
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 7, 2024
