Given the break-neck speed at which Donald Trump makes questionable comments, it’s often easy to forget some of his years-old (yet equally alarming) remarks.
That’s where Stephen King, who has never been shy about sharing his thoughts on the former president, comes in, this time reminding us all of Trump’s views on veterans. Taking to X on August 9, the horror author wrote that Trump “didn’t want to be photographed with amputee veterans.”
The claim stems from reports which first emerged in 2020, when it was discovered why Trump cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in honor of fallen veterans. At the time of that planned visit in 2018, then-President Trump blamed his cancellation on the weather, though inside sources later suggested there was a more sinister reason behind his absence.
According to a 2020 report by The Atlantic, four senior staff members said that Trump’s cancellation was because he didn’t think it was important to honor veterans, with one source claiming Trump said: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
It was also reported that Trump referred to those who died as “suckers” for getting killed, and requested that amputee veterans be excluded from public parades because “nobody wants to see that.” Those bombshell reports were given renewed attention last year, when White House chief of staff for Trump, John Kelly, went on the record to confirm that many of these sentiments were true.
Kelly claimed that Trump would often disparage veterans, reiterating the former president referring to them as “suckers” and his belief that being in the presence of amputees “doesn’t look good for me.” In his statement, Kelly described Trump as a person who “rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’.”
In the years since, Trump’s knack for running his mouth — more recently discussing everything from Hannibal Lecter to sharks and batteries — might’ve seen his comments about veterans become buried by his own pull-quotes, but not on King’s watch. “Of [sic] he loved veterans, wouldn’t he be one?”, the Carrie author wrote on X, while re-sharing the 2020 reports of Trump’s comments.
Elsewhere, King reposted a news clip that reported on Trump’s views on veterans, as well as the public comments he made about John McCain. In 2015, Trump said the late senator and veteran was “not a war hero” because he was shot down while in combat. Trump’s team denied the reports as fake news at the time, one of their all-time favorite hobbies, but we can always rely on King to hold the former president’s feet to the fire.
Just this month, the acclaimed author has described Trump as a “child doing a tantrum”, said he is “afraid to debate” his opponent Kamala Harris, and criticized his track record of lies.
Published: Aug 12, 2024 03:30 am