As President-elect Donald Trump started building his administration in 2024, an old rumor about something he may have said years earlier about US military members resurfaced online. According to this claim, Trump once called deceased soldiers “suckers and losers”.
U.S. President Joe Biden frequently repeated this claim while campaigning against Donald Trump for president in 2024, including at the June presidential debate and Vice President Kamala Harris accused President-elect Trump of repeating it as well.
Since it first arose during his presidential race with Joe Biden in 2020, Trump and his allies have denied this charge and made public support of both active-duty soldiers as well as veteran members an important pillar of their campaigns.
Rumors surrounding President Trump’s comments stemmed from an April 2020 story published by The Atlantic magazine and reported by several news organizations after publication, using solely anonymous sources within his administration as their sources.
At no point could there be evidence of audio or video recordings or transcripts or presidential notes to independently confirm or refute these allegations, nor any firsthand witness testimony to confirm whether Trump called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” Due to our inability to witness firsthand Trump’s remarks we cannot say for certain whether they did or did not say such.
Since this claim first made headlines, we have reached out to Trump’s representatives to ascertain if there is any additional proof supporting their denial and will update this story once we receive one.
How the Allegations Arised
In an April 2020 article by The Atlantic entitled, “Trump Argues That Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers and Suckers,'” anonymous sources within his administration revealed what may have caused Trump not to visit an American war cemetery on his 2018 trip to Paris despite having wanted to.
Trump did not visit Aisne-Marne American Cemetery — home of graves of American service members killed during World War I — for two reasons, according to The Atlantic: fearing rain would dishevel his hair and not finding honoring American war dead important, according to four people with knowledge of what had transpired that day (this statement made by The Atlantic is bolded here for emphasis). The Atlantic continues (emphasis added).
Trump rejected the visit due to both aesthetic and symbolic reasons, according to four people with direct knowledge. According to those familiar with what transpired that day, in conversations with senior staff on the morning of a scheduled visit he expressed disdain towards American war dead by asking them why it should visit such cemeteries where “losers” buried themselves; later that same trip Trump also described more than 1,800 marines killed at Belleau Wood Cemetery as “suckers”.
Shortly after publication of The Atlantic report, two unidentified senior officials at the Department of Defense and Marine Corps confirmed President Trump’s 2018 cemetery comments through interviews with The Associated Press (AP). One had direct knowledge while the second had heard them firsthand from someone.
Trump Allies Reject the Claims
The White House blamed bad weather as the reason behind cancelling cemetery visit and, responding to The Atlantic’s reporting, Trump dismissed any allegations made as being from “an incredible magazine”.
Trump strongly denied calling fallen soldiers “losers and suckers.” When speaking to reporters after receiving reports of this criticism on Sept 3, 2020 upon returning from campaign rallies near D.C. just after its publication, Trump stated his denial: “I swear on my word that I never said such an inappropriate thing about any fallen hero; nobody respects our fallen heroes more – no animal would say such an impolite or outrageous statement!”
Just days later, Zach Fuentes, an ex-White House aide who left early 2019 but had traveled with President Trump during his Paris visit and possibly heard any relevant conversations regarding cemetery visits, spoke up in defense of Trump in an interview with Breitbart.
John Kelly was Trump’s chief of staff during this trip and did not call any individuals losers when I informed him about the weather conditions. I do not believe General Kelly would have let any individual call fallen Marines losers.”
Reporting on Fuentes’ interview with Breitbart, The Washington Post noted that, although she does not recall hearing something that may or may not have taken place, “not hearing something doesn’t equal “it didn’t occur”. Furthermore, no evidence indicated Kelly could hear any such statements by Trump.
Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton denied participating in this trip by issuing an official denial to Fox News days later, calling its report simply false and noting it would never happen.
Mike Pompeo himself denied these allegations during an interview with Fox News in September 2020, stating “I was with President Trump during part of that trip, and never witnessed or heard him use any such language as described by that article; simply, never witnessed.”
Trump Critics Continuously Make this Allegation
Biden made multiple accusations during his 2024 presidential bid against Donald Trump of making comments disparaging of members of U.S. armed services.
Biden made this claim via his official account on X in October 2023, as part of an attack post against Trump who, according to Biden, once “referred to American service members as suckers and losers.” Additionally, this video footage featured Biden speaking at an event held to remember late U.S. Sen. John McCain (an army veteran and prisoner-of-war in World War 2) (where Biden referenced The Atlantic story published two years prior).
On the day following Biden’s post on X, Kelly made similar claims while speaking to CNN: (Emphasis ours).
What more could I add that has not already been stated? A person who sees those defending our nation in uniform as “suckers”, with little reward in exchange, and who spend years being tortured as POWs as “nobodies”, may think otherwise; one such individual did not wish to see military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good.” They openly displayed disdain toward Gold Star families during 2016 presidential campaign rallies while showing open contempt towards any and all Gold Star families as “losers”, suggesting these heroes sacrificed their lives fighting our nation despite losing battleground ground battleground.
Kelly reported hearing Trump call American troops “losers and suckers,” though he could not recall whether these remarks had occurred directly or were heard via someone else or news reports (The 2020 Atlantic story mentioned another incident of Trump visiting Kelly’s son who died serving Afghanistan – where Kelly may have also been present – wherein Trump asked volunteers what benefits there might be to serving in their military ranks: “What could possibly come of it all for them?).
Responding to CNN’s interview, a Trump official issued the following statement to CNN: “John Kelly has completely embarrassed himself with these misleading stories he invented because he failed to serve President Trump well as Chief of Staff.
Harris made this accusation after officially beginning her presidential bid against Trump in July 2024.
At its heart, this claim stemmed from an article in The Atlantic which relied on anonymous secondhand reports about Trump’s words; no independent footage or documented proof supported these alleged comments from him; and Trump vigorously denies ever using those terms to refer to service members; although there’s always the chance he said them himself; Snopes was unfortunately unable to independently verify this allegation.
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