Remember when we learned Trump really did call war heroes losers and suckers?

Former President Donald Trump is always getting himself in trouble with both the public and private things that he says. But few alleged remarks have been as bad as the ones he made about American war heroes, comments that he may have actually said according to his former Chief of Staff.

Trump’s former Chief of Staff General John Kelly confirmed in October 2023 that the former president really did make disparaging remarks about the country’s war heroes while he was serving as Commander-in-Chief according to a statement that he made to CNN. 

Trump often made media headlines during his four years as president for what he would allegedly say behind closed doors. However, some of his most egregious remarks came in the middle of his presidency when he reportedly called wounded US soldiers “losers”.

The incident was reported on by The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg in September 2020 but it took place in 2018 during a presidential visit to France. Trump was scheduled to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris but he canceled the visit due to rain. 

Goldberg’s report explained that the former president canceled his visit to the cemetery because his helicopter couldn’t fly and then said that the Secret Service couldn’t fly him to honor the dead American soldiers buried at the cemetery. But there was more to it. 

Trump allegedly didn’t want his hair to get ruined by the weather, and while speaking to senior staff members, the former president was quoted as saying: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” However, that wasn’t the worst of his comments. 

Four people familiar with the incident confirmed Trump’s comments at the time and later in the day on the same trip, the former president also allegedly referred to the 1800 men Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Woods as “suckers” according to Goldberg. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons: By U.S. 1st Marine Division Public Affairs Office, Public Domain

The former president denied that he had made either comment at the time according to the New York Times, and tols reporters in the Oval Office that it was a “fake story” and that he believed it was a disgrace that the news media was allowed to publish the story of him. 

“To me, they’re heroes,” Trump said. “It’s even hard to believe how they could do it. And I say that, the level of bravery, and to me, they’re absolute heroes.” However, the former president’s Chief of Staff has confirmed Trump really did make the disparaging remarks. 

In his statement to CNN, former US Marine Corps General John Kelly set the record straight on what Trump said and what the former president thinks about the people who defend American values. Kelly went on the record and confirmed the story about Trump published in The Atlantic. 

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly stated. When asked if he wanted to comment on the former president in light of recent remarks made by staff who worked with Trump, Kelly went off on the former president for his beliefs about the U.S. military. 

“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’” Kelly explained to CNN in his statement. 

“A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’… and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France,” he said. 

General Kelly also said that Trump “had no idea what America was all about” and added he had “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law… There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.” 

Among the other stories confirmed by Trump’s former Chief of Staff was an incident that occurred on Memorial Day 2017 while visiting Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. Trump turned to Kelly and said to the general:  “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” 

The New York Times reported the attitude General Kelly described regarding Trump’s thoughts on the military matched up well with an account from the former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley who revealed his own encounter with Trump’s insensitivity. 

The former president allegedly chastised General Milley for choosing an Army captain who had lost his leg while fighting in Afghanistan to sing “God Bless America,” saying that “no one wants to see that, the wounded,” according to the New York Times.