Trump Disrespects the Military
February 2024
Trump has consistently disrespected the military, insulting those who have chosen to serve and showing little consideration for their safety and sacrifices. He proved himself unfit to be Commander in Chief while in office, and his campaign shows that he has learned nothing from the experience. In fact, backed by an increasingly extremist and emboldened Republican party, a second Trump presidency will be far worse and more reckless than the first.
Trump has not only continued to verbally insult active duty military, prisoners of war, and fallen service members; as President he consistently failed to protect them and laughed off their injuries and deaths.
Despite never serving himself, Trump has repeatedly disparaged fallen and wounded soldiers:
Trump famously referred to Americans who died in war as “losers” and suckers."
While in France, Trump skipped visiting the graves of American service members killed in World Wars I and II because it was raining.
Trump’s former Chief of Staff has confirmed that Trump said he didn’t want to be seen with wounded veterans because “it doesn’t look good for me.” He also admonished senior Pentagon officials for allowing a wounded war veteran to sing during an event because “no one wants to see that, the wounded.”
Beyond these horrifying statements, Trump’s decisions and policies led to the very sort of American casualties that he continues to belittle.
After greenlighting a reckless and provocative drone strike that killed a high ranking Iranian general, Trump minimized the traumatic brain injuries that U.S. troops received in Iran’s retaliatory strikes, referring to them as “headaches.”
After four U.S. soldiers were killed by militants in Niger, Trump insulted the grieving widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, telling her that her husband “must have known what he signed up for.”
Despite the fact that 65 service members were killed in hostile action while Trump was President, compared with 16 service members killed during the Biden administration to-date, Trump erroneously claimed that American troops were safer on his watch.
Trump’s attitude toward the armed forces is that of a dictator – expecting them to serve his own personal and political ends, not those of the United States. He has even threatened to execute those who question or criticize him.
Trump thinks he knows more about the military than the decorated and experienced military leaders who have dedicated their lives to defending the country while swearing an oath to the Constitution. Angry with a group of generals who were explaining military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq, Trump attacked them as “a bunch of dopes and babies.”
Trump frequently insults military officials' intelligence; he has called the military officials with whom he worked “some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met in my life.”
He uses the military as a political prop, using the Department of Defense as a background to sign the first anti-Muslim travel ban, delivering an overtly political address while on a trip to a warzone, and posing for a photograph with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff while clearing Black Lives Matter protestors from in front of the White House.
Trump went so far as to suggest the execution of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. And his lawyers argued that a president should be immune from prosecution if he directs SEAL Team Six to assassinate his political enemies.
And in a chilling November 2023 reminder, Trump indicated at a rally that he would not hesitate to use U.S. troops against American citizens and U.S. cities if he felt like it.
Trump is also promising that he will deploy soldiers to build detention centers and round up immigrants – further politicizing the U.S. military. In 2018 and 2019, Trump routinely demanded that soldiers be sent to the border.
Trump has demonstrated that he does not understand the sacrifices made by those in the military or comprehend why individuals serve their country in the first place.
Trump insulted his political rival Nikki Haley, asking, “What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone,” even though her husband currently serves with the South Carolina National Guard in the Horn of Africa.
At a 2017 Memorial Day commemoration at Arlington Cemetery, Trump commented, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” to his then-Secretary of Homeland Security, General John Kelly, about the graves of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
During the 2016 Presidential election, after the parents of a slain soldier were vocally critical of Trump, he insulted the family by equating their sacrifices as a gold star family with his own experiences, saying he “sacrificed a lot” by employing “thousands and thousands of people.”
In 2015, Trump mocked Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who served as a US Navy carrier pilot and spent 5 years being tortured in a POW camp in Vietnam, by claiming he preferred heroes “who weren’t captured.”
Trump is, unfortunately, no longer an outlier in his party. Co-opted by Trump, Republicans have increasingly taken actions to fuel his extremism and undermine the U.S. military.
When Trump issued a ban on transgender officials serving in the military in 2016, only 5 Republican House members voted to condemn it – despite the fact that it threatened personnel readiness.
In 2023, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), blocked 301 senior military promotions for ten months based on the Republican party’s extremist views on abortion. Tubberville opposed a Pentagon policy that allowed for time off and travel reimbursements to service members seeking abortions. Tuberville’s reckless political stunt undermined military readiness and U.S. national security, and left hundreds of service member promotions in limbo and positions vacant.