Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden declared President Donald Trump unfit for the presidency on Friday, delivering an impassioned reaction to a report that Mr. Trump — who never served in uniform — allegedly mocked American war dead.
The President and his allies have dismissed the report in The Atlantic as false.
The allegations, sourced anonymously, describe multiple offensive comments by the president toward fallen and captured US service members, including calling World War I dead at an American military cemetery in France losers and suckers in 2018.
The reported comments, many of which were confirmed independently by The Associated Press, are shining a fresh light on Trump’s previous public disparagement of American troops and military families. That opens a new political vulnerability for the president less than two months from Election Day.
Voice cracking, Mr. Biden told reporters that you know in your gut Trump’s comments, if true, are deplorable.
"I’ve just never been as disappointed, in my whole career, with a leader that I’ve worked with, president or otherwise," Mr. Biden added.
"If the article is true — and it appears to be, based on other things he’s said — it is absolutely damning. It is a disgrace."
He added that “the president should humbly apologise to every Gold Star mother and father, to every Blue Star family that he’s denigrated." Mr. Trump, in the Oval Office, said no apology was necessary, because it was a fake story.
Mr. Trump was alleged to have made the comments in November 2018, as he was set to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery during a trip to France. The White House said the visit was scrubbed because foggy weather made the helicopter trip from Paris too risky and a 90-minute drive was deemed infeasible.
Speaking Friday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump denied ever uttering such comments: It was a terrible thing that somebody could say the kind of things — and especially to me ‘cause I’ve done more for the military than almost anyone anybody else.”
Later, in a press briefing, he suggested the source of the story was his former chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly. "It could have been a guy like John Kelly," Mr. Trump told reporters, saying his former top aide was unable to handle the pressure of this job.” Biden’s critique was personal.
The former vice president often speaks about his pride for his late son Beau’s service in the Delaware Army National Guard. As he spoke, Mr. Biden grew angry, raising his voice to rebut Mr. Trump’s alleged comments that Marines who died in battle were "suckers" for getting killed.
"When my son was an assistant U.S. attorney and he volunteered to go to Kosovo when the war was going on, as a civilian, he wasn’t a sucker," Mr. Biden declared. Beau Biden died of cancer in 2015.
Returning to Washington from a Thursday visit to Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump told reporters that the Atlantic report was a disgraceful situation by a terrible magazine.
"I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes," Mr. Trump told the reporters, gathered on the tarmac in the dark.
"There is nobody that respects them more. No animal — nobody — what animal would say such a thing?"
On a call with reporters hosted by the Biden campaign Friday, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth lambasted Mr. Trump for belittling the sacrifices of those who have shown more bravery than he’s capable of.
Mr. Duckworth, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who lost both of her legs in the Iraq War, has been a prominent critic of Trump’s handling of military issues. Knocking Mr. Trump for allegedly inventing an injury to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, Mr. Duckworth said she’d take my wheelchair and my titanium legs over Donald Trump’s supposed bone spurs any day.
Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who drew national attention after criticising Mr. Trump during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, joined Mr. Duckworth on the call and said Trump’s life is a testament to selfishness.
"Words we say are windows into our souls. So when Donald Trump calls anyone who places their lives in service of others a loser, we understand Trump’s soul," he said. Mr. Khan’s son, Humayun, was killed in action in Iraq in 2004.
In 2016, Mr. Trump responded to the criticism from Mr. Khan by claiming he’d made sacrifices of his own and by making an Islamophobic attack on Mr. Khan’s wife, Ghazala Khan, who was wearing a headscarf at the Democratic convention, saying: "She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say".
Mr. Trump acknowledged Thursday he was never a fan of McCain and disagreed with him, but said he still respected him and approved everything to do with his first-class triple-A funeral without hesitation because he felt he deserved it.
In 2015, shortly after launching his presidential candidacy, Mr. Trump publicly blasted McCain, saying, "He’s not a war hero".
He added, "I like people who weren’t captured".
