President Donald Trump on Thursday vehemently denied an anonymously sourced news report alleging he disparaged U.S. service members killed in war as “losers.”
The video: Trump issued the forceful seven-minute rebuttal to the press after disembarking Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland following a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
According to the Thursday report by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Trump blew off a planned 2018 visit to honor U.S. service members who died in Europe during World World I at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris and called the war dead “losers” and “suckers.”
- On missing the ceremony The president said he felt “terribly” that weather conditions prevented him from flying by helicopter to the cemetery and a motorcade was deemed too disruptive to local operations.
- On trashing the troops: “Fake things. Fake news. Corrupt news. The kind of news that’s ruining your profession. And everyone knows it’s totally false,” Trump said. “It is a disgraceful situation by a magazine that’s a terrible magazine, I don’t read it, but I just heard about it, they made it up.”
- On the anonymous sources: “If they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they’re lowlifes and they’re liars,” Trump said. “And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more.”
Trump continued the rant on Twitter on Thursday, rejecting Goldberg’s reporting that he was angered when flags were lowered to half-staff following the 2018 death of Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and told senior staff members, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”
- While acknowledging his disagreements with McCain, Trump said he had approved the senator’s state honors “without hesitation or complaint.”
“I’ve done more for the military than almost anyone else,” Trump added Friday in the Oval Office.
You can’t handle the truth!: Liberal commentators were quick to declare The Atlantic’s report further proof of Trump’s depravity.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg concluded on Twitter that Trump would have sided with Nazi Germany.
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement that the reported allegations, if true, “are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States.”
- As president, Biden pledged: “I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.”
But former and current Trump officials came to Trump’s defense with their own recollections of events.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that she was part of the discussion in France and called The Atlantic’s account “total BS.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that he was with Trump for much of the trip and: “I never heard him use the words that are described in that article.”
Trump campaign national press secretary Hogan Gidley also pushed back on the reporting, calling the allegations “disgusting, grotesque, reprehensible lies.”
“I was there in Paris and the President never said those things,” Gidley said in a tweeted statement. “In fact, he would never even think such vile thoughts because I know from firsthand knowledge that President Trump absolutely loves, respects and reveres the brave men and women of the United States military.”
Byron York, the Washington Examiner’s chief political correspondent, pointed out in a tweet that John Bolton, the national security adviser at the time of the trip, confirmed Trump’s account of why the trip to the American cemetery was canceled.
Buzzfeed News investigative reporter Jason Leopold shared on Twitter internal Navy documents that tell the same story.
Even some Trump-skeptical journalists argued The Atlantic should not have published the report without on-the-record sourcing.
The Atlantic said it stands by its reporting, which was partly confirmed by other top news outlets citing anonymous sources.
