At the beginning of last week, former President Donald Trump, who is this year’s Republican nominee for the nation’s top job, showed up at Arlington National Cemetery to mark the third anniversary of an attack in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of 13 U.S. military service members… and to pose for the camera.
According to reports, there was even apparently an altercation on the grounds, with a member of cemetery staff attempting to stop any filming in an area of the cemetery used for recent burials. In the end, the cemetery trip showed up in Trump campaign materials circulating online, and Trump has been widely blasted.
“For veterans across the country to see that Donald Trump is using Arlington Cemetery and the graves there as some sort of TikTok campaign video is highly offensive,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a veteran and former prosecutor, said on CNN.
“He’s certainly unfit to be the commander-in-chief,” the Congresswoman added. “You just keep seeing new lows with Donald Trump, and it’s difficult to come on again and again and again to shows like this to talk about how horrible his conduct is with respect to our military and our veterans, and really get a sense that then he just continues to try to cloak himself in the flag, to cloak himself and surround himself with veterans when he disparages them, when he disparages this country again and again and again.”
Like… every other Trump scandal so far, the Arlington National Cemetery incident did not result in any kind of decisive distancing by Republicans from the man carrying their party’s torch into this year’s general election.
“If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude. And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America,” Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said.
