As President, Donald Trump once did not enter a US military cemetery.
According to a media report, the reason is hair-raising - and his behavior even more so at the time.
Donald Trump
is said to have made derogatory comments about
soldiers
who died
in
World War II
.
Furthermore,
according to a report,
the incumbent
US president
revealed
appalling
knowledge gaps
in history.
His US election challenger
Joe Biden
immediately picks up the report.
Update from September 7th, 7:25 p.m.:
Reports of his alleged denigration of fallen US soldiers
apparently
hit
Donald Trump
sensitively: Sometimes the President brushes allegations aside with a wave of his hand.
In this case, Trump tried several days after the explosive story was published in
Atlantic
magazine
to refute the allegations.
On Monday, the
US President
again used an article on the far-right
Breitbart News
for this purpose.
The website quoted former White House Deputy Chief of Staff
Zach Fuentes
as saying he hadn't heard the president speak of "losers" when he briefed Trump on the weather ahead of the scheduled appointment at a French US military cemetery.
He also did not know which sources the magazine was referring to, Fuentes said.
He didn't
speak
to
The Atlantic
himself
.
Trump tweeted the link to the article - and railed with a look at the previous reports of "corrupt fake news". However, Fuentes only denied that the information could have come from him. He did not give a definitive rejection of the presentation in the magazine.
Exclusive: Zach Fuentes, Top Aide to John Kelly, Denies Atlantic Story About Trump https://t.co/RXrpKhdPb1 via @BreitbartNews Thanks Zach.
Just more corrupt Fake News trying to change the course of our most important, ever, Election!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2020
In the meantime, a political scientist took
stock of four years of Trump's presidency
in an interview with
Ippen-Digital-Zentralredaktion
.
He sees lessons for Germany - but also for journalism.
Trump is said to have vilified US soldiers - now the next scandal threatens
Update from September 5, 9:52 a.m.:
According to media reports
Over alleged derogatory remarks by Donald Trump about fallen US soldiers, the President of the United States has
demanded
the dismissal of a correspondent for his house broadcaster
Fox News
.
On Twitter, the US head of state demanded that journalist Jennifer Griffin should be "fired" for reporting.
According to Trump, she never asked the White House for an opinion, as proof of his claim, he tweeted a link to a report by the right-wing populist portal Breitbart.
Now
Fox News is
"lost" for him, the US President continued.
Jennifer Griffin of Fox News Did Not Confirm 'Most Salacious' Part of Atlantic Story https://t.co/rUpbSWhHac via @BreitbartNews All refuted by many witnesses.
Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting.
Never even called us for comment.
@FoxNews is gone!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2020
According to Griffin, she received confirmation of Trump's statements from two former government officials.
They told her that Trump had refused a visit to a military cemetery during a trip to France “to honor American war dead”.
The reason for this decision was not the weather, as an official statement made at the time.
Trump is said to have insulted fallen soldiers terribly - now his wife Melania speaks out
Update from September 5, 9:52 a.m.:
Even for
US presidents,
there are still absolute no-gos - for example,
insulting
soldiers
and
veterans of
the United States.
According to a report,
Donald Trump
is said
to have done
exactly that
(see initial report).
Now
wife Melania
has done something rare: She has taken sides publicly.
The allegations were "not true," said the First Lady on Twitter on Friday.
“These are very dangerous times when anonymous sources are believed more than anything else and nobody knows their motivation.
This is not journalism - this is activism. "
The Atlantic
magazine
invoked "four witnesses" in its report.
However, Trump himself is not so specific about sources: In a TV interview, he recently put forward theses that even the presenter of his house broadcaster
Fox
classified as conspiracy theories.
Trump is said to have insulted fallen soldiers terribly - "disgusting lies"
First report from September 4th:
Washington / Aisle-Marne - US President
Donald Trump *
described
US soldiers
who fell
in
World War II
as
"losers"
according to a media report
.
During a
trip to France in 2018
, Trump
spontaneously refused
a planned visit to the
US military cemetery Aisne-Marne
near Paris, according to an article in
The Atlantic
magazine
.
The US President said to his staff: “Why should I visit this cemetery?
It's filled with losers
. "
1 / President Trump, who never served in the military, canceled a 2018 visit to a cemetery where American troops are buried, saying: “Why should I go to that cemetery?
It's filled with losers. "
https://t.co/25GkwyjjJM
- The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) September 3, 2020
The
article written
by
Atlantic
editor-in-chief
Jeffrey Goldberg
states that Trump turned down the planned visit primarily because he feared that his
hairstyle
could be
"disheveled"
in the rain
.
The US delegation had officially declared at the time that Trump could not visit the cemetery because his helicopter was not ready to take off due to the weather.
Hairstyle more important for Trump than a US military cemetery?
- "Disgusting Lies"
In another conversation on the same trip, Trump described the more than
1,800
US soldiers buried in the Aisne-Marne cemetery as
"idiots,"
the report continues.
Accordingly, there are four witnesses for the statements.
Trump
denied
the report late Thursday evening after the
White House
denounced
the allegations as
"disgusting, grotesque and reprehensible lies
."
On the sidelines of a campaign event in Pennsylvania, Trump told journalists: "Someone is making up this horrible story that I didn't want to go (to the cemetery)." The people who make these claims are "scum and liars," Trump said .
He was ready to "swear that I never said anything like that about our fallen heroes".
Critics, however, pointed to the
denigration of
Trump by the late Republican Senator
John McCain
.
During the
2016 election campaign
, Trump said of one of his biggest internal party critics, captured during the Vietnam War, that McCain was
"not a hero"
and that "I like people who have not been
caught
."
Trump with knowledge gaps in history: "Who were the good guys in this war?"
According to the
Atlantic
report, Trump is said to have
revealed
historical knowledge gaps
during the 2018 trip to France
.
Accordingly, he asked his staff:
“Who were the good guys in this war?”
The President did not understand that the US was sending soldiers to Europe to support the Allied French.
Trump’s November 3rd Democratic challenger
Joe Biden
said that if the allegations in the
Atlantic
article were true, they were “another sign of the disagreement between President Trump and I over the role of President of the United States States are ".
Should he win the presidential election, he will "make sure our American heroes know that I stand behind them and will honor their sacrifice - always," added Biden.
(
AFP / frs
)
* Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital editorial network.
