Throughout his life, creepy Donald Trump has adopted the strategy taught him by his mentor, the late infamous Roy Cohn, that you never back down and never apologize. You always charge ahead and attack whoever crosses you, throwing everything you have at them. It helps if you have money and can threaten lawsuits. This can result in people being too intimidated to fight back, even when they are in the right. His staff clearly follow him in this.
But in the case of the Arlington cemetery fiasco, creepy Trump may have made a bad miscalculation. What should have been a one-day story if, as I suggested a few days ago, his staff had claimed a misunderstanding and quickly apologized to the cemetery staffer, has now become a multi-day story about violations of the law, thuggery towards government employees, and disrespecting the military.
As a result, creepy Trump has been forced to repeatedly defend his actions.
Donald Trump offered an extended defense Friday of his decision to pose for photos at Arlington National Cemetery, insisting he was there at the invitation of families of military members who were killed in Afghanistan and not for a campaign event.
The former president’s remarks about Arlington at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and a subsequent appearance at a Moms for Liberty event in Washington, D.C., underscore how the incident has spiraled into a major embarrassment for his campaign.
…Trump faulted the White House for making his visit and photo shoot a political issue, saying he received a call from someone in the administration, who he did not identify, who told him the photos taken were for public relations purposes.
“It’s just so disgusting, and I’ll tell you, I get a lot of publicity and I don’t need that publicity,” Trump said.
The Harris campaign and Democratic members of congress seem determined to twist the knife in the wound and make sure that the issue does not die down. Harris has accused him of ‘disrespecting’ the military (which must sting, since creepy Trump and the GOP love to wrap themselves as ardent lovers of the military), while members are calling on the Army for a full report on the incident.
Kamala Harris – the Democratic nominee for November’s White House race – has accused Donald Trump of “disrespecting sacred ground” on his recent visit to Arlington national cemetery, as the controversy over an apparent altercation between workers of his campaign and cemetery staff continued to build.
The vice-president on Saturday accused the former president and Republican nominee of staging a “political stunt” after the US army accused the Trump campaign of turning a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity. The army also accused two campaign workers representing Trump – who said he was invited to the ceremony by the family of one of the honored soldiers – of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.
…Meanwhile, Democrats have called for a US army report into an apparent altercation between campaign staff and cemetery officials.
The initial bluster of the creepy Trump campaign was that they had video evidence supporting their side of the story which they would release if the media reported what they called a ‘defamatory’ version of events. But that bluff has been called and no video has been forthcoming.
So now creepy Trump is going to his second line of defense, and that is to look for scapegoats. He is shifting the blame on to the families of the dead service members who accompanied him for the photo op.
ON THURSDAY, FORMER President Donald Trump attempted to spin away reports that one of his aides pushed a staffer at Arlington National Cemetery during a visit to the burial ground earlier this week, blaming the controversy on “very bad people.” He also suggested in an interview that the Gold Star families he accompanied may have been the ones who published videos from his visit, rather than members of his campaign.
Trump claimed that he didn’t know “anything about” the use of the images on his campaign social media. “We have a lot of people, we have TikTok people,” he said. “You know, we’re leading the internet.”
Pressed on it again, Trump suggested the parents of the deceased service members he had accompanied may have been responsible for distributing the videos and photos.
“I don’t know what the rules and regulations are. I don’t know who did it,” Trump said. “It could have been them — it could have been the parents.”
This is not true. Informed his campaign published videos from the visit on TikTok, he said, “I really don’t know anything about it.”
He is incapable of stopping digging, however deep the hole he is in.
to which the follow up question should be “Why don’t you know what your campaign is doing?”
“I was invited to a private ceremony by the family who then distributed images through my campaign team into my new Tiktok —some say it’s the greatest TikTok ever and it’s doing great numbers because of my perfect Arlington photos— and we know the democrats and Biden crime family are behind the disgusting leak which I never agreed to, I would never allow that to happen, but I don’t know anything about that.”
What a clown show. If any of his staff were competent they could have told him that just visiting would be enough to generate a positive story. And if he wasn’t such a willful ignoramus, he might have followed that advice.
I’ve read a number of articles about this in other places, and you know what they say about never reading the comments. There appear to be a lot of people who defend and celebrate what Trump did. Worse, they keep insisting the Gold Star family invited Trump. Given what Trump thinks of the military, of Gold Star families, and about people who aren’t him (or maybe Ivanka), I think the odds are slim-to-none that a rando family invited Trump and he paid any attention. This stunt was clearly a set-up from Trump’s campaign to make him look good.
It’s truly remarkable how DT has taken all the things repubs claim to stand for (the military, law-and-order, family values) and completely stomped on them. If a democrat had called people in the military losers and suckers (especially after getting out of serving with a fake diagnosis), it would be the end of their political career. Carter never divorced, nor did Mondale, nor Dukakis, nor Clinton (although…), nor Obama, nor Biden. But Reagan did, and McCain, and DT. The hypocrisy is light years beyond staggering.
@#1: This exactly. You want to run the country, but you “don’t know what the rules and regulations are,” or what the people who work directly for you are doing? I’d sooner vote for a bucket of krill.
He is incapable of stopping digging, however deep the hole he is in.
Drill, baby, drill!
“You know, we’re leading the internet.”
Yeah. Like a hare leading a pack of wolves.
“I really don’t know anything about it.”
So now we can start calling him the know-nothing Donald.
Trump has not shown any respect for the military at any point. Before he was president he got out of the draft with obviously faked exemptions but has never admitted to having skipped out. While he was president he tried to organize a yearly military parade but when he made it clear that it would be for displaying his glory the military avoided doing it.
Even one of the few good things he did, pull out of Afghanistan, was not a realistic consideration of the cost, it’s long term lack of success or slow steady cost to the US military. He organized a fast pull out because he didn’t care what happened that far from the US and didn’t care how much damage the pull out would do. He then turned around and tried to blame Biden for carrying through with the treaty he had signed to pull out.
@Matt G, 5:
I think what’s truly remarkable is how little difference it makes. I mean, I think I speak for pretty much everyone posting here when I say I hope Trump gets stomped on by Harris come election time… but I still can’t believe that something I have to hope. I didn’t have to bother “hoping” that Rishi Sunak wouldn’t be PM of the UK come July. It got the point where it seriously looked like he was actively *trying* to lose the election. (Spoiler if you’ve not yet seen the result of the UK election -- he succeeded in losing it by a landslide).
And yet, in the US, Trump similarly does things that look like he’s actively trying to alienate the traditional voting base of the party he nominally represents… and his poll numbers barely flicker. A couple of months ago, when his competition was Biden, he was LEADING. Even now, with all the hope, optimism and competence displayed by Harris and her team, he may no longer be actually in the lead, but it’s incredible that it’s still close (by which I mean, Harris’s lead is less than 10%).
He’s often lambasted for saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his numbers wouldn’t go down, but that actually seems to be one of the few things he said that is 100% accurate. I don’t necessarily think he realised when he said it or since, but that statement, accurate as I believe it to be, isn’t a comment on his popularity per se -- it’s a comment on the idiocy of the people who vote for him.
If you have a vote in the US election, for pity’s sake USE IT and vote Harris. Don’t be complacent, don’t think it doesn’t matter. You’ll be offsetting the idiots, and the world will thank you.
Craven liar step 1, deny any wrongdoing occurred.
Did the family ask you to assault the cemetery staff and bring a film crew, or to attend a memorial service?
Step 2 Attack
Step 3 Reverse victim and offender
I’m happy that the Army is being pressured into doing something more than shrugging at its employees being assaulted and the well known rules being deliberately violated.
Not so much their racism (although many are idiots) as their racism andor misogyny. Those are the core of Trump’s appeal, so it is natural that neither his bizarre rants about sharks and Hannibal Lecter, nor his insults to the military or veterans, make a difference.
Not so much their idiocy…