Wow, the Arlington story has actual legs. It’s blowing up in Trump’s fat orange face. And the more details come out, the worse it gets. It’s so bad for Trump that Elon Musk’s X has tagged news about the incident as “unsafe” to discourage people from reading about it.
First off, there’s no question that Trump was there for a campaign event and to make a campaign video, which was posted on Trump’s vanity social media site. You really must watch Chris Hayes on this point.
WaPo has the backstory about how all this happened.
Earlier this month, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign contacted military officials about visiting Arlington National Cemetery to mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the evacuation from Afghanistan.
Officials said they wanted to respect the wishes of grieving family members who wanted Trump there, but at the same time were wary of Trump’s record of politicizing the military. So they laid out ground rules they hoped would wall off politics from the final resting place of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their nation.
Instead, they got sucked into exactly the kind of crisis they were hoping to avoid.
The right-wing Daily Caller is running a story claiming that House Speaker Mike Johnson had to intervene to get the military to allow Trump into the cemetery. But instead of giving clicks to Daily Caller, do read about it on Politics USA. This story as written in Daily Caller makes no sense, since any citizen can enter Arlington during visiting hours. Well, I suppose if you showed up buck naked and carrying a flamethrower you might run into some obstacles. But the issue wasn’t about whether Trump could enter cemetery grounds but what he was planning to do there. The story came from a member of one of the families involved in the incident, and that person may have been confused.
Anyway, the military was fine with Trump participating in a requested wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns, but it asked that no cameras or film equipment be taken into section 60 near the graves. As explained in yesterday’s post, federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within U.S. military cemeteries. This includes include “photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.” I take it the military was willing to look the other way about campaign staff as long as no photographs or videos were made around the graves that would end up in campaign messaging.
But of course, Trump’s people believe they are entitled to do whatever they want. When a woman employed at Arlington tried to enforce the rule and stop the fillmmaker(s) and phtographer(s) from entering Section 60, she was pushed aside and later smeared by the Trumpers as being mentally unstable. And so Trump got his campaign video.
The woman who was shoved decided not to press charges because she didn’t want to become a target of Trump thugs. The military issued a statement rebuking Trump for his and his team’s behavior at Arlington, but then declared the matter to be closed.
But assaulting a federal employee in the performance of her duties is a felony (18 USC 111). Under nearly any other circumstance a person shoving aside an Arlington employee who was just doing her job would have been arrested on the spot. And, as we’ve already said, making a campaign video around the graves is definitely illegal also. Once again, Trump gets away with breaking the law because people — in this case the bleeping military — don’t want to get sucked into one of Trump’s dramas and possibly cause a MAGA mob to storm Arlington.
So is that the end of the story? So far I’ve found one U.S. Congressman calling for the incident report to be released to the public.This is Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat who represents Virginia’s 11th district. This district does not include Arlington but is right next door to it. I assume Mike Johnson would quash any investigations in the House, but the Senate could do something. And so far the family of at least one Green Beret buried in Arlington has expressed “dismay” that the grave marker of their loved one, Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, is visible in Trump’s video. They did not give permission for that, they said. So further developments are possible.
"Officials said they wanted to respect the wishes of grieving family members who wanted Trump there"
Right grieving families always pose with smiles and thumbs up next to their loved ones tombstone. They are just as despicable if not more than Stump. I'm shocked this story is still being reported on I figured one and done and back to why Kamala won't sit for an interview!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0oHjvGgCok
I’m watching Harris being interviewed on CNN as I keyboard. IMO Dana Bash is annoying and reminds me why I don’t watch CNN. Harris is holding her own just fine.
"Harris is holding her own just fine"
Yes but did Dana ask about her support for wind power causing people to stop eating bacon?
Today Trump explained that people can’t eat bacon because of energy. They just want wind. Video at link.
If they keep eating too much bacon there'll be wind alright.
At the risk of stating the obvious… Trump does not think the rules apply to him. This is another example of a laundry list of offenses, starting with racial discrimination and cheating on taxes. But I haven't seen anyone do justice to Trump's contempt for the rule of law. Many of his current tantrums are about the looming trials that might landTrump behind bars for years.
Again stating the obvious, the trip to Arlington was a stunt. The idea was to put the loss of lives in the withdrawal from Afghanistan on people's minds. It was cheap dig at Biden. Trump also is cleaning up the mess of comments where he put the Medal of Honor (for military heroes) BELOW the Medal of Freedom (for civilians, now worthless because of who Trump gave it to.) Some veterans groups cried foul. The risk is not that conservative members of the military will vote for Harris. But they might skip voting – or write in a protest name.
On that same theme, I read an article on Salon or Politico where one of the Pro-Life groups is demanding Trump fall in line on the full spectrum of controlling reproductive freedom. Total ban on abortion and interference in IVF and birth control. Will this be huge? Probably not but peel off a few thousand in GA or PA and Trump is toast.
The story of the stunt might have more legs than you might expect. It did recall the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but that was under Biden so it really isn't a very strong statement. There was risk, but not much reward.
And I saw at least one article mentioning that some military folks were just learning that, the military said Trump need to keep troop levels at 4000 for security, and he overrode them, and said they'd make due with 2500.
Now, I'd seen stories suggesting he deliberately sabotaged Afghanistan, but, I didn't realize he'd do it in such a clumsy manner. That story, if it starts hiking with this one, is really bad. I can't speak for the military mindset, but I know that a lot of troops get used to the rule of "whoever, fucked with it last, broke it." I don't know when a bad decision gets turned into a reason to dislike a CinC, but, Trump clearly *did* fuck with security last.
So it's possible this could rebound and hurt Trump, partly because it's a weak attack against Harris, and partly because, wow, he may really have hoped to see chaos and dead US servicefolks that he could use in his 2024 campaign, aka, the "I'm like herpes!" election campaign.
Good comments, as the election now has a focus is on Trump's deficiencies rather than Biden's age. Doug is correct about Trump's disrespect for the law. With this incident he picked the wrong law to disrespect. I like the term scofflaw as the term in question. It dates to prohibition days. As one of the old local politicos said of those days, people do like their alcohol. Those who flaunted drinking laws got that moniker. In the right (or wrong) circles the term was a complement. Trump the scofflaw tromped on the wrong law in the wrong place. A good scofflaw knows public opinion and when and where to scoff. This was a blunder on both counts.
Harris did a fine job at the interview it appears. I only saw clips. She sticks to values and defers on specifics. That is wise. As they say the devil does reside in the details. She seems to have achieved quite a level of fame. Enough fame that she gets both attention and respect. She offers quite a change in perspective, one that seems needed and appreciated. You get the impression you may get the rare opportunity to vote for someone rather than the least objectionable of the lot. That's a plus.
A bit off topic but related. Kamala rides quite a good wave of economic news, a rising stock market and good numbers on inflation. Interest rate cuts should ease money supply and happen soon.
OT, I read that "The Apprentice", the biography Trump tried to kill, found a US distributor and will be released Oct 11.
OT: Trump announced today that he will vote (in Florida) AGAINST a FL Constitutional Amendment that would preserve the standard of Roe vWade and strike down the existing 6-week ban that Trump has criticized. He recently suggested he might support the amendment but obviously the outcry from the fetus people was so loud, Trump changed his mind.
I wasn't in on the conversation(s) but I'd bet the threat was that the anti-abortion movement would not vote for Trump. He's been trying the pivot to the center that he does badly to reduce the size of the swell of young voters who will vote against him.. Trump gambled that the fetus people would calculate that Trump is better than Harris since she's promising to restore Roe.
The fetus people cozied up to the GOP for decades and all they got was a plank in the GOP platform that nobody acted on. They loved Trump when he packed the court with their judges. (as he promised, with a litmus test on abortion.) Now they want to finish off all the aspects of women's independence. And Trump is threating to go moderate on them to get elected.
This is interesting. On the #2 issue, (behind the economy) Trump is damned either way. If he embraces what he did (and bragged about), he's toast with the faction large enough to do Trump in. But now, if he does not toe the line for the fetus people, THEY will pull the rug out.
Popcorn, please.
"Trump changed his mind"
I honestly think Stump does this on purpose. He spews his lies (everything he days is a lie) on both sides of any given issue knowing that our corporate media will report his lies on both sides with little to no fact checking so he can be all things to to all of his supporters. Some who think the six week ban is too extreme will remember that he said he was against it and the fetus people can have comfort in knowing that he "changed his mind". At this point if your dumb enough to believe one thing that big bag of shit says you'll believe anything.
These days I'm not sure he does much of anything on purpose. I think he's reacting from his emotions and instincts. He has no convictions other than his own self-interest, so he just says what he thinks people want to hear at the time. The problem is that with abortion you can't please everybody. He can't placate his base without saying things that will turn off the majority of voters. He may just now be starting to realize that. He's not that bright, you know.