Donald Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, where two members of his campaign reportedly got into a “verbal and physical altercation” with a cemetery official over Team Trump’s apparent attempt to film and take photos in an area that staff had previously been told was off-limits.
According to NPR, which first reported the incident, “cemetery officials attempted to prevent Trump staff from filming and taking photos in the burial area of recent American casualties,” with a source familiar with the incident telling the outlet that “Arlington officials made it clear that only cemetery staff were allowed to take photos or videos in the area known as Section 60.”
When the official attempted to bar campaign workers from entering Section 60, Trump staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside,” according to NPR. In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery confirmed “an incident occurred” and “a report was filed.” The cemetery also emphasized that “federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities at the National Military Cemetery, including photographers, content creators, or any other person attending for the purpose of or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery has reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson insisted that no altercation occurred, saying in a statement: “The truth is that a private photographer was allowed onto the grounds and for some reason, an unnamed individual, who is clearly suffering from mental illness, decided to block members of President Trump’s team during a very formal ceremony.” The campaign spokesperson added, “We stand ready to release the footage if such defamatory claims are made.” As of Wednesday, no footage had been released, despite several requests from The New York Times.
Trump has a long, sleazy history of demeaning members of the military. According to a report by Atlantic, later confirmed by Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly, The former president called Marines killed at Belleau Wood during World War I “suckers” and soldiers buried at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery “losers.” While Trump has denied making the aforementioned comments, in 2016 he publicly attacked a Gold Star family, and in 2020 he suggested that a group of Gold Star families may have infected him with COVID-19—despite the fact that he reportedly tested positive for the virus before meeting them. He also said, when discussing John McCain—who spent half a decade in a North Vietnamese prison—“I like people who weren’t captured”; he then spent years belittling the Arizona senator, even after McCain’s death. Most recently, Trump declared the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an award given to civilians for exceptional contributions, “much better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor, an award reserved for members of the military, because the recipients of the latter were wounded or died.
“It’s actually much better because everyone [who] “They were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, they were soldiers,” he said. “They were either in very bad shape because they had been shot so many times, or they were dead. [Trump mega-donor Miriam Adelson] got it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman. They were judged equally, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom…and that was through committees and everything else.”
