Trump Campaign Officials Accused of Verbally Abusing, Shoving Arlington Cemetery Official During Wreath Laying Ceremony

Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto via AP

Two officials with former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign were accused of verbally abusing and shoving an Arlington National Cemetery official during an altercation on Monday.

According to NPR , which cited a source “with knowledge of the incident,” the two unnamed campaign officials allegedly got into a verbal and physical altercation with the cemetery official after the official attempted to stop them from “filming and photographing in a section where recent US casualties are buried,” known as Section 60.

After the cemetery official tried to prevent the Trump staffers from entering Section 60, the staffers allegedly “verbally abused and pushed the official aside.”

The incident took place as Trump took part in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the anniversary of the 2021 Kabul airport terrorist attack, which killed 182 people – including 13 US military personnel – during the Biden administration’s controversial withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

In a statement to NPR, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung rejected the assertion that an altercation had taken place and blamed the incident on an individual “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

“We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” said Cheung in the statement. “The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”