"Suckers" and "losers": DNC to remind Trump rally-goers of ex-president's contempt for veterans

Former President Donald Trump wrapped up Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, Georgia, and heads to Chesapeake, Virginia on Friday. When he gets there, he will be greeted not just by supporters in red MAGA hats: The Democratic National Committee plans circle Trump’s rally armed with a mobile billboard displaying his disrespect toward the country's veterans.

"Donald Trump thinks Americans who died in war are 'losers' and 'suckers,'" DNC spokesperson Tracy King told Salon. With the mobile billboard, "voters will remember the disrespect and pain he inflicted on service members and their families as he callously mocked them while serving as commander in chief — not only through his words but through his disastrous and costly policies."

The presumptive GOP nominee has called U.S. soldiers and veterans “losers” and “suckers” in the past, a point that President Joe Biden brought up several times during Thursday’s night debate. Trump's quote was first reported by The Atlantic, which said Trump made the comments while in France, when sources said he decided against visiting a cemetery for U.S. soldiers because the rain that day would mess up his hair.

"Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers," he said, later referring to the more than 18,000 Marines buried at Belleau Wood as "suckers."

Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, confirmed last year that the former president made the remarks, saying the presumptive Republican nominee is someone who "has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about."