Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden late Thursday condemned President Trump’s reported remarks calling American war dead “losers,” saying all troops that sacrifice for their nation “should be honored.”
“If the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true, then they are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States,” Biden said in a statement.
The former vice president said the nation’s “one truly sacred obligation” is to care for military members and their families, both during their deployment and after they return home.
“From the frontlines of our own Revolution to Belleau Wood to the Normandy beaches to the mountains of Afghanistan, the sacrifice and bravery of our troops and their willingness to serve our nation should be honored,” Biden wrote.
“Duty, honor, country — those are the values that drive our service members. Those are the values that have formed the core of America’s defense for centuries,” he added.
Biden concluded by pledging to “ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice” should he become the next commander in chief.
His statement comes after a report from The Atlantic, citing anonymous sources, described Trump allegedly denigrating U.S. service members.
Before a planned visit to honor the American dead at a French cemetery just outside Paris in 2018, Trump reportedly called the U.S. service members buried there during World War I as “losers.”
Trump ultimately canceled the visit to the cemetery at the last minute, stating that due to the rain, the helicopter could not fly to the location, noting that the Secret Service could not drive him.
However, according to four sources with knowledge of the incident, Trump was reluctant to travel to the cemetery because he was concerned that the rain would dishevel his hair, The Atlantic reported.
In another conversation, Trump reportedly said that the 1,800 Marines who lost their lives in the battle of Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed. The president reportedly asked aides about historic details about WWI, including “Who were the good guys in this war?”
This is not the first time Trump has made controversial comments about veterans.
Trump previously mocked the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam veteran who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, and said he wasn’t a war hero “because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
The Atlantic also reported that Trump told senior staff he wouldn’t support McCain’s funeral and grew angry when he saw flags at the White House lowered to half-staff to recognize the senator.
Trump vehemently denied The Atlantic’s reporting, angrily calling it “fake news” and a “disgrace” and suggesting the author and his sources are “liars.”
“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. There is nobody that respects them more,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after a campaign stop in Pennsylvania Thursday evening.
“So, I just think it’s a horrible, horrible thing. It made a great evening into frankly a very sad evening when I see a statement like that. No animal, nobody, what animal would say such a thing?” Trump continued.
On Twitter, he insisted that while he disagreed with McCain on policy issues, he approved the lowering of the flag to half-staff and the use of an Air Force plane to transport McCain’s casket from Arizona.
Trump also denied ever calling McCain a loser, saying that he would “swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES.”
Many social media users resurfaced Trump’s remarks in 2015 where he made the disparaging comments about McCain and said he doesn’t “like losers.”
They also noted that Trump shared a link to an article about his remarks with the headline “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’ ”