Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign repeated a false accusation against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, claiming that the former president described U.S. military veterans as “suckers” and “losers,” despite the claim being repeatedly debunked.
In a Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter, Kamala HQ wrote, “Four years ago today, The Atlantic reported that Donald Trump called fallen American service members ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and refused to visit their graves. This was later confirmed by a Fox News reporter and Trump’s former Chief of Staff and retired four-star general John Kelly.”
According to The Post Millennial, the false claim was initially published in 2020 by The Atlantic based on accusations made by John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and a retired four-star general. Kelly claimed that Trump canceled a visit in 2018 to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, which is located near Paris, France, because the former president did not think it was important enough to honor U.S. service members who were killed in war. The Post Millennial reported that Kelly made the claims after he had been fired by Trump.
The Post Millennial reported that the accusation against Trump was previously discredited by at least a dozen of Trump’s former staff members who accompanied the former president during his trip. The outlet also noted that multiple fact-checking websites, including Snopes, have not been able to verify the accusations made by Kelly. Snopes’ website notes that it was “unable to independently verify the claim.”
In a recent interview with former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Trump claimed that the story published by The Atlantic was a “made-up story.”
“It was made up by a magazine, and I think it was ‘The Atlantic,’ which is a radical left magazine, and as soon as I heard it, I said, ‘That’s a terrible thing,'” the former president told Ryan. “And you don’t get rid of it, you know, they make these things and they just use it and use it, the opposing side, they know it’s false. I had twenty-six people that said it never happened. Who would say it? Who would say it? Nobody would say it.”
Despite the unverified nature of The Atlantic’s claims, Trump’s denial of the claims, and multiple witnesses who debunked the story, the Democratic National Convention, President Joe Biden, and the Harris-Walz campaign have continued to push The Atlantic’s story that Trump called U.S. military veterans “suckers” and “losers.”
