"Sick and tragic": Veterans, Democrats criticize Trump for "incident" at Arlington National Cemetery

Two members of Donald Trump's campaign staff pushed and verbally abused an official at Arlington National Cemetery while the former president was participating in a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday, NPR first reported.

A source with knowledge of the incident told NPR that the official tried to prevent staffers from filming and photographing in Section 60, a restricted area where recent U.S. military casualties are buried. According to the source, officials had already made clear that only cemetery staff were permitted to film and photograph in that area, and when one of the officials tried to prevent Trump campaign staffers from entering, the staffers verbally abused and pushed the official aside.

Arlington National Cemetery, in a statement to NPR, said it "can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed."

"Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign," the statement continued. "Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants."

Trump was in Arlington to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport in 2021 during the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in an attack, which Trump has cited to criticize President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the administration's handling of the evacuation.

On Tuesday, Trump posted a statement from relatives of two service members killed in the bombing. “We would like to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to president Donald J. Trump for his presence at the recent Section 60 gathering, honoring our children and their fallen brothers and sisters,” the Truth Social post read. “On the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, the president and his team conducted themselves with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity for all of our service members, especially our beloved children.”

The statement also said that the family members accepted the presence of an official videographer and photographer at the event, though their approval does not override existing rules by the cemetery that regulate behavior near the grave sites of many other veterans. In the end, Trump got his photo, which depicts the former president smiling widely and giving a thumbs-up behind the graves of the two Marines.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pushed back on the altercation story in a statement to NPR, saying that "we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made." (As of Wednesday morning, no such footage has been released.)

"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," Cheung claimed.

Predictably, reports of an altercation on hallowed ground sparked outrage from veterans and veterans' groups. Liberal veterans organization VoteVets demanded that Trump take action against the staffers who took part in the incident. "If Donald Trump respects the fallen (he doesn't) he will fire the people who fought with Arlington National Cemetery staff," the group said in a statement on social media. "The fact is, Trump staff did this because he wanted them to do it. He sees Section 60 as Suckers and Losers too," the group said, referring to Trump's past alleged comments about veterans.

Former Rep. Max Rose, D-N.Y., who fought in Afghanistan, called the photograph and the alleged altercation that made it possible a "sick and tragic" affair. "Trump and his team care only about using the military as a prop," he wrote on X. "No respect for our nation’s fallen heroes. Trump only cares about himself."

Rep. Mickie Sherrill, D-N.J., a former Navy lieutenant, said that the former president using Arlington National Cemetery as a "photo-op" was to be expected from Trump, as "disrespecting veterans is par for course."

Criticism over Trump's comments about veterans exploded in 2020 after multiple Trump White House sources provided examples of him disparaging veterans for a report by The Atlantic. According to one story, he resisted visiting the grave sites of American World War I veterans in Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France because "it's filled with losers" who were "suckers" for getting killed. At a briefing given by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, Trump reportedly turned to aides and said: “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?”

Trump has denied those claims, but some public statements he's made are more difficult to dismiss: In 2015, he described former Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as "not a war hero" because he was shot down and captured by North Vietnamese forces.

It's not just words that have put a spotlight on Trump's record with veterans. During his administration, Trump gave authority over Department of Veterans' Affairs policy to a trio of business executives with memberships at his Mar-a-Lago club and personal ties to him, sparking a 2021 investigation by congressional Democrats that found the arrangement "violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interest." Investigations by ProPublica also found that Trump's Veterans Affairs officials enriched large companies while imposing longer waits for benefits on veterans, weakened the department by cutting its staff and retaliated against whistleblowers over reported abuse and malpractice at VA facilities.

If Trump was sometimes reluctant to visit military cemeteries during his presidency, some commentators observe that he now sees the political benefits of putting it in his schedule.

"The idea that any candidate of any party would use, intentionally or unintentionally, use that sacred ground as a prop for a political campaign is beyond condemnation," journalist Mike Barnicle said on MSNBC. "It’s terribly upsetting, obviously, to people who have buried loved ones in Arlington National Cemetery."