Recently, The Atlantic dropped a story alleging that President Donald Trump had privately referred to fallen American service members as “losers” and “suckers.” During an interview that aired on this Sunday’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Dr. Jill Biden — the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden — reacted to the news, which she called “heartbreaking” if true. The late Beau Biden — Joe’s son and Jill’s step-son — served in the Iraq War, giving the Biden family a personal connection to the issue.
Trump and many of his allies have denied the central allegations in the article from The Atlantic, but the report actually follows quite closely with the president’s public remarks and behavior. For instance, he has repeatedly disparaged the late John McCain, even after his death. McCain was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, but at one point, Trump mockingly commented that he likes “people who weren’t captured.”
As Jill Biden put it to host Jake Tapper, discussing the allegations in the article from The Atlantic:
‘If it is true, it’s pretty heartbreaking. This should not be made into a political issue. We should have a commander-in-chief who supports our military family. As Joe says, it’s our one sacred obligation to take care of our military and their families.’
Watch her comments below:
"We should have a commander-in-chief who supports our military family," says Jill Biden on President Trump reportedly calling fallen US military members losers. https://t.co/1RFD8rTmnW #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/GZ0h1sZi6J
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) September 27, 2020
Jill Biden also insisted that in the past, “there was true civility in government, and that’s what we should return to.” Trump, of course, behaves essentially as far from any concept of “civility” as possible. It’s seems like pretty much no one is off-limits from his endless stream of belligerent tweeting. This weekend, he even suggested that Joe Biden might be on performance-enhancing drugs and demanded a drug test for the Democratic nominee before the upcoming debate between the two of them. There is no evidence, at all, that Joe Biden is on any sort of drugs — Trump is just desperately slinging rhetorical mud.
This reminds me of what my friend Senator Fritz Hollings once said when his opponent challenged him to take a drug test: "I'll take a drug test if you'll take an IQ test." https://t.co/8Ro8ExB3Bs
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) September 27, 2020
Many Americans definitely seem to be on the Bidens’ side. In FiveThirtyEight’s early Sunday average of polls in the presidential race, the former vice president leads Trump by an average of 7.3 percent. The former vice president’s time in the spotlight has been marked by endorsements from perhaps surprising sources, like John McCain’s wife, Cindy, and a group of hundreds of former top national security officials who signed on to a recently released Biden endorsement letter.
