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NEW YORK (AP) — The reported altercation at Arlington National Cemetery involving Donald Trump’s staff was far from the first time that veterans or the families of service members have criticized the former president for words or behavior they saw as disparaging.
Since his first run for the White House, Trump has picked fights with the military and veterans that no other major U.S. politician would, dating back to 2015 when he dismissed the late Sen. John McCain’s military record because McCain had been a prisoner of war. Trump's allies argue he supports service members while reserving the right to lash out against his critics.
“I think that if you want to know how Donald Trump values and honors those who’ve served, and particularly those who’ve given the ultimate sacrifice, I think you can just talk to these families and they have a much better read on this issue than anybody who has a grudge against Donald Trump,” said Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump's running mate, on Monday.
Monday's incident at Arlington National Cemetery took place as the former president visited the graves of some of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Kabul bombing during the 2021 U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan. The Army says a cemetery official was “pushed aside” by Trump campaign aides while trying to prevent them from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for military personnel killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Trump campaign later posted footage of the visit on its social media accounts. The family of a decorated Green Beret whose grave appeared in the photos issued a statement supporting those who lost loved ones in Kabul but asking for understanding for the concerns from relatives of service members whose graves were near them.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but has contested the allegation that a campaign staffer pushed a cemetery official.
Jon Stoltz, a U.S. Army veteran and co-founder of veterans advocacy group VoteVets, which supports Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy, said Trump tried to use a sacred place “for a political ceremony."
“They don’t have a right to do that with other veterans who are there," Stoltz said.
The Arlington incident came less than two weeks after Trump came under criticism for the way he discussed the Congressional Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration for service members.
Praising billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, Trump said she fared “much better” than receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor because recipients of that award are often badly injured or dead.
Despite the Veterans of Foreign Wars admonishing Trump by calling his comments “flippant” and “asinine," he repeated a version of the remark at a campaign event in Michigan on Thursday, saying he'd “rather get” the Medal of Freedom because the Medal of Honor recipients, “oftentimes they've suffered greatly, right? They've suffered greatly or they're not around."
Earlier this year, then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley condemned Trump for questioning her husband’s whereabouts while he was serving a National Guard mission abroad.
His former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired general, has alleged that Trump referred to Americans killed in World War I as “suckers” and “losers." Trump has denied that allegation.
In the past, Trump has maintained strong support from veterans, who tend to be reliable voters that favor Republicans.
AP VoteCast found that about 6 in 10 military veterans said they voted for Trump in the 2020 election, as did just over half of those with a veteran in the household. About 60% of veteran voters in the 2020 election identified as Republicans and about half — 47% — considered themselves conservative.
Pew Research Center’s validated voter survey found that a similar share of veterans supported Trump in 2016. And among voters in this year’s South Carolina Republican primary, AP VoteCast found that close to two-thirds of military veterans and people in veteran households voted for Trump over Haley.
Trump argues he protected service members by pushing to end foreign wars like the two-decade conflict in Afghanistan. He has also taken credit — wrongly — for first passing a private sector health care program, Veterans Choice, that was initially enacted during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
Neither Trump nor Harris served in the military, with Trump obtaining a series of deferments during the Vietnam War, including one obtained with a physician's letter saying he had bone spurs in his feet.
Both parties have courted veterans. They have stood up veterans coalitions and are backed by outside groups focusing on veterans issues. And both picked veterans as running mates.
Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating high school, serving four years as a combat correspondent, a type of military journalist, and deploying to Iraq in that capacity in 2005.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris' running mate, served a total of 24 years in various units and jobs in the Army National Guard, although the circumstances of his retirement ahead of his unit’s deployment and several characterizations he’s made of his time in service have drawn criticism from Republicans — particularly Vance — and prompted the Harris campaign to issue clarifications. The campaign has also promoted Walz’s service as ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee during his time in Congress.
Stoltz, co-founder of VoteVets, said that Trump's stock with veterans could be damaged by the former president’s repeated slights, but he believes it has an impact broadly among voters because Trump's comments and actions can be perceived as affronts on that community.
“I know there’s veterans who support Trump,” he said. “He’s just motivated people against him.”
On its website, VoteVets offers a number of pro-Harris-Walz items, including camouflage yard signs, of which Stoltz said the group had sold 10,000 in recent weeks.
“People are starting to view the military as just another thing that Trump wants to use for his own gain,” Stoltz said.
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Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina. Associated Press reporters Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.