Friday, September 04, 2020

Fox News Confirms Accuracy Of Reports Stating Trump Insulted Veterans & Military (Trump's Tweets Also Offer Confirmation And Numerous News Stories Over Years Verify His Attitudes)

The Atlantic's recent reporting on Donald Trump's negative comments about the military and veterans was quickly confirmed yesterday by the Washington Post and the New York Times. A senior Defense Department official confirmed the story in its entirety to the Associated Press.

The Post's report contained additional information, stating Trump:
told senior advisers that he didn't understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly and gotten caught and deserved what they got.
Trump's defenders are pointing out that these claims are made by unnamed sources (by citing unnamed sources). ... Well, not everyone is anonymous.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified in 2018 that Trump admitted faking bone spurs to avoid serving in Vietnam, telling Cohen: "You think I'm stupid? I wasn't going to Vietnam."

Mary Trump, Donald's niece, told an interviewer (well before The Atlantic's story broke) that Trump threatened to disown one of her sons if he enlisted in the military.

Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor confirmed that Trump refused to lower the flag at the White House to half-mast after McCain's death, but eventually he gave in.

Trump himself confirmed the reporting by tweeting some of it, as Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine notes.

Chait also explains how Trump's denial is riddled with falsehoods:
Trump did call McCain a "loser." It's on video. Trump even tweeted the video of himself saying it ...

Trump also made a version of the same attack in a 1999 interview, when he said of McCain, "He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don't know. I'm not sure."

Second, while Trump claims he lowered the White House flag to half-mast to honor McCain's death "without hesitation or complaint," four sources told the Times in 2018 that Trump stubbornly refused until finally and belatedly submitting. Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor confirmed the account today, on the record.

And finally there is the obvious fact that Trump, in 2015, disparaged John McCain for being captured. That is to say, the private comments Trump is fervently denying are merely grosser versions of his publicly explicated view, that being captured because his plane was shot down makes McCain a loser and not a hero.

This is the most remarkable fact about the defenses of Trump pouring in from the right. Trump is obviously a massive liar. He has already made clear that he does not respect military service. They are throwing what's left of their reputations on the line to deny nothing more than an incrementally worse version of a reality that Trump has already revealed.
And:

Fox News National Security Correspondent Confirms Reporting On Trump's Disparagement of Veterans, Military, Amputees, And McCain


White House Lying Lackey Refuses To Take Press Questions, Starts Running For The Door While Still Talking!


Biden, On Trump's Mask-Mocking: "It's Hard To Respond To Something So Idiotic"

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