Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is yet again defending Donald Trump’s decision to take photos with military families in a restricted area of Arlington National Cemetery called Section 60.
In a contentious exchange on Meet the Press Sunday, Kristen Welker pressed Cotton on whether or not Trump broke the law by making campaign content out of the pictures and videos taken there.
Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony honoring 13 service members who died withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021. One of the soldiers, Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, is buried in Section 60. Trump posed for photos with the Hoover family at his grave. Trump’s spokespeople have denied any wrongdoing, claiming they were given permission to film ahead of the visit. Cemetery and defense officials have denied this.
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Further adding to the chaos, a scuffle allegedly occurred between a member of the cemetery staff and Trump campaign staffers when the cemetery worker tried to stop Trump’s entourage from taking photos. In a statement earlier this week, the Trump campaign also denied the physical altercation took place.
“13 brave Americans were killed in Afghanistan three years ago because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's failure to plan for a withdrawal,” Cotton wrote in response last week on X.
“Good for President Trump to honor the service and sacrifice of those fallen heroes and their loved ones.”
“The scandal is not that Pres. Trump honored 13 brave Americans killed in Afghanistan,” he wrote in a later post. “The scandal is Biden and Kamala sent those heroes into a needlessly dangerous situation.”
Doubling down on his comments Sunday on NBC, Cotton told Welker: “He didn’t take campaign photos there. These families, Gold Star families, whose children died because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s incompetence, invited him to the cemetery… They wanted President Trump there. They wanted to take those photos,” Cotton said.
Welker then brought up Master Sergeant Andrew Marckesano, a fallen solider whose gravestone was visible in photos Trump took with the Hoovers. Following the controversy, Marckesano’s sister asked that the soldiers buried at Section 60 “are honored and respected accordingly.”
When asked if the Marckesano’s wishes were honored, Cotton said: “No, Kristen, they honored the wishes of the 13 families whose children died at Abbey Gate. Those families wanted the photos. They told me yesterday that they specifically asked President Trump for the photos. Obviously, headstones at Arlington are close to each other. When you take a photo of your loved one then other headstones are going to be present as well.”
Coincidentally, Cotton has a special tie to the sacred site. It’s where he served for 16 months in The Old Guard. Soldiers assigned to The Old Guard guard the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, another holy site in the cemetery, among other duties.
In his 2019 book Sacred Duty, Cotton details his time at Arlington and gives his thoughts on conduct while visiting.
“Although a sign welcomes visitors to ‘our nation’s most sacred shrine,’ no rules are posted. Yet visitors somehow understand a proper code of conduct,” Cotton wrote.
Ironically, his tune has changed as he went to bat for the former president.
