WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden declared President Donald Trump “unfit” for the presidency on Friday, giving a passionate reaction to a report that Trump, who has served in uniform, mocked the U.S. War.
The president and his allies dismissed the Atlantic as false.
The allegations, collected anonymously, describe offensive comments through the president that oppose fallen and captured U.S. service members, adding that they called World War I dead in a U.S. Army cemetery in France in 2018.
Reported comments, many of which have been independently displayed through the Associated Press, yield new details about Trump’s previous public denigration of U.S. troops and army families, opening up a new political vulnerability for the president less than two months before Election Day.
With a broken voice, Biden said that “you know in your instincts” that Trump’s comments, if true, are “deplorable.”
“I’ve never been so disappointed, in my entire career, with one leader I’ve worked with, president or another,” Biden added.”If the article is true, and it turns out to be based on other things, he has said — it is surely damning.It’s a disgrace.
He added that “the president humbly apologizes to each and every Gold Star parent, each and every Blue Star family circle he has denigrated.Who the hell does he think he is?”
Trump, in the Oval Office, said no apology is needed because it’s a “fake story.”
Trump reportedly made the comments in November 2018, when he had to make a stopover at the AMERICAN cemetery in Aisne-Marne for a holiday in France.It was considered impossible to drive 90 minutes.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump denied commenting: “It’s a terrible thing for someone to be able to say things like that, and especially to me because I did more for that.army than almost anyone else.
Later, at a press conference, Trump warned that the source of the story was his former personnel leader, retired naval general John Kelly.”He could have been a guy like John Kelly,” Trump told reporters, claiming that his former senior The Assistant “couldn’t take care of the tension of this job.”
Biden’s complaint was personal. The former vice president talks about his pride in serving his son Beau in the Delaware National Guard.As he spoke, Biden became angry and raised his voice to refute Trump’s alleged comments that Marines who died in action were “dumb” for being delicate.
“When my son was an adjunct U.S. lawyer and volunteered to spend the war on Kosovo, as a civilian, he was not an idiot,” Biden said.
“When my son volunteered to join the U.S. Army as Attorney General, he went to Iraq for a year, won the Bronze Star and other honors, he wasn’t an idiot!”
Beau Biden died in 2015.
Returning to Washington after a stopover in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump told reporters that Atlantic’s report “is an outrageous situation” through a “terrible magazine.”
“I’d be willing to swear on everything I’ve said about our fallen heroes,” Trump said, piling up on the track in the dark.”No one respects them more. No animal — no one — what animal would such a thing say?
Biden has framed the election from the beginning as a referendum on Trump’s character.His allies temporarily seized reported comments in the hope that they could widen the gap between army families and veterans and Trump.They also believe that the factor can convince disgruntled Republicans.electorate who is fed up with Trump’s ongoing controversies.
In particular, Biden’s team believes that their well-documented experience, whether politically, with army problems can help him make raids on a population that widely supported Trump in the 2016 election and can help influence this year’s election in a series of nearby movements.. States, Biden himself did not serve in the army.
Military families largely supported Trump in the 2016 election, and a June 2019 Pew Research Center veteran survey found that veterans supported Trump more than the general public, and that about 60% of the veterans surveyed knew themselves as Republicans.
In a reporter call organized through Biden’s crusade friday, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth criticized Trump for “belittling the sacrifices of those who have shown more courage than him.”
Duckworth, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who lost both legs in the Iraq War, has been a prominent critic of Trump’s handling of military affairs.Beating Trump for allegedly inventing a wound to serve in the Vietnam War, Duckworth said he would “take my wheelchair and titanium legs on the bone spurs planned by Donald Trump at any time.”
Khizr Khan, the father of the gold star who attracted nationally after criticizing Trump at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, joined Duckworth in his call and said that “Trump’s life is a testament to selfishness.”
“The words we say are windows to our souls. So when Donald Trump treats anyone who puts his life at the service of others like a loser, we perceive Trump’s soul,” he said.Khan’s son Humayun was killed in action in Iraq in 2004.
In 2016, Trump responded to Khan’s complaint by claiming that he had made his own sacrifices and attacking Khan’s wife, Ghazala Khan, who dressed in a headscarf at the Democratic convention, saying, “She had nothing to say.”she’s not allowed to say anything. You have to tell me.”
Trump also denied calling the vanquished Arizona Senator John McCain, a decorated naval officer and prisoner of war in Vietnam, a “loser” after his death in August 2018.
Trump stated Thursday that he was “never a fan” of McCain and disagreed with him, but said he had a good reputation and approved of all his “first-class triple-class funerals” without hesitation because “I felt he deserved it.”
In 2015, shortly after the publication of his presidential candidacy, Trump publicly smeared McCain, saying, “He’s not a war hero.”He added: “I like other people who haven’t been caught.”At the time, Trump also shared a press article on Twitter calling McCain a “loser.”
Trump only amplified his complaint from McCain as the Arizona lawmaker has become critical of his scathing political style, culminating in a late-night “no” vote that grounded Trump’s plans to repeal the care law., and Trump continued to attack McCain by voting, even on a supermously.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday at “Fox
When asked Friday about the option to see Trump when they are in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks next week, Biden said, ‘I didn’t know I was going to go to’ what I announced through myself.Matrix Of course.”
When asked if he would agree to share a percentage with Trump, he said, “Yes.He is still president of the United States of America.”
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AP writers James LaPorta and Jill Colvin contributed.
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