U.S. President Donald Trump referred to U.S. marines buried in a First World War cemetery in France as “losers” and “suckers” for getting killed in action, according to a report on Thursday in the Atlantic magazine.
The report, penned by the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, said Mr. Trump had refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because “he feared his hair would become dishevelled in the rain,” although the official explanation offered by aides was that the helicopter due to take him there could not fly due to weather.
“In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Mr. Trump said, ‘Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,’” the article said.
“In a separate conversation on the same trip, Mr. Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as ‘suckers’ for getting killed,” the Atlantic added, citing four unnamed people who had firsthand knowledge of the discussions.
Mr. Trump slammed the report on Thursday.
“Somebody makes up this horrible story that I didn’t want to go,” he told reporters after returning from a rally.
Allegations denied
“If they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they’re low lifes and they’re liars. And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes,” he said. “No animal, nobody, what animal would say such a thing?”
However, some critics pointed to Mr. Trump’s denigrating comments about late Senator John McCain, who was captured in Vietnam and was regarded as a war hero. Mr. Trump said in the run-up to the 2016 election: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”