Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, during which his staff got into an altercation with cemetery personnel and potentially broke federal campaign law, was a triumph, according to Trump’s campaign boss.
Chris LaCivita, the GOP strategist and co-manager of Trump’s 2024 campaign, lauded his candidate late Wednesday in a post on X, calling an image from Trump’s calamitous Arlington visit “The Photo that shook the world and reminded America who the real Commander in Chief is.”
NPR reported Wednesday that two Trump campaign staffers got into a “physical altercation” with an official at Arlington on Monday when the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the third anniversary of a fatal attack on U.S. troops during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump was invited to attend by Gold Star families who lost family members during the withdrawal.
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The incident arose when Trump’s team tried to film and photograph in a section of Arlington where recent U.S. casualties are laid to rest and where only cemetery staff are allowed to film or take pictures. One Arlington staffer tried to prevent the Trump team from gathering footage.
Cemetery officials told the broadcaster it “can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”
Federal law bars political campaigns and election-related activities inside Army national military cemeteries, and Arlington officials said it “reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants,” noting it applies to “photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s campaign shared a TikTok video Wednesday evening with footage from Arlington that likely violates federal law.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told NPR the campaign is “prepared to release footage” to counter the claims by Arlington officials, and suggested the cemetery staffer who tried to block Trump’s campaign from filming and taking pictures was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” The campaign also said it received permission from the Gold Star families to film.
One Gold Star father, who was not in attendance, told The Daily Beast that Trump’s team exploited the burial site for personal gain.
To LaCivita, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was awarded a Purple Heart after he was wounded in the Persian Gulf in 1991, the visit apparently was a smashing success. The Trump campaign manager, however, has a history of mixing military service with politics in ways that aren’t always truthful.
He was a key consultant to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the political group that launched a series of discredited attacks on Democrat John Kerry over his military service during the 2004 presidential election campaign. Swift Boat was initially financed by Harlan Crow, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ billionaire pal, and was eventually fined $300,000 for failing to register properly as a political group.
More recently, the Trump campaign has launched a series of disputed attacks on Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who served in the National Guard for 24 years, alleging “stolen valor.”
