Donald Trump posted a TikTok of his visit to Arlington National Cemetery, stoking further controversy about whether he should have filmed on the hallowed grounds or not.
Trump, 78, slyly criticized Joe Biden’s administration without mentioning the president or Kamala Harris by name. The 21-second video features a Trump voiceover as he stands by gravesites, visits with Gold Star families, and lays a wreath at a memorial.
“We lost 13 great, great people,” Trump says in the clip. “What a horrible day it was. We didn’t lose one person in 18 months and then they took over that disaster, the leaving of Afghanistan.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Trump has been criticized for appearing to politicize his visit to honor soldiers who were killed three years ago by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during the U.S.’s chaotic withdrawal from the country. Biden and Harris did not attend Monday’s event.
The controversy around Trump’s visit escalated Tuesday evening when reports emerged that someone in his camp got into an “altercation” with a top cemetery official who objected to the campaign filming his visit.
Trump’s spokespeople have claimed they were given permission to film ahead of the visit and confirmed that an incident took place. NPR reported the clash got physical in Section 60, a 14-acre area where U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest.
The Trump campaign denied that the altercation escalated beyond words in a statement to the Daily Beast, however.
“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. He did not respond to the Daily Beast or NPR’s request to share the footage.
“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said.
Donald Trump stands alongside the sister of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan in 2021.
Anna Moneymaker/ReutersArlington National Cemetery, located just outside of the nation’s capital, is the largest resting place for U.S. soldiers killed in action and war veterans. It’s long had strict rules in place that orders politicians to not politicize their visits to the sacred site.
Criticism of Trump’s visit has largely been on party lines, but some of those bashing him have come from the right. That includes Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican lawmaker who’s a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, who skewered Trump for recording at the cemetery and for smiling next to soldiers’ graves.
“Donald Trump is a disgrace to our nation, and to Arlington National Cemetery,” Kinzinger said. “To politicize that visit without regard for the rules is just par for the course from this sick man and his tiny minions.”
