Donald Trump wanted a Putin-style military parade in 2018, you may remember. You’re not surprised to hear today that he didn’t want wounded vets in it, thinking it would look bad on him.
“Those are the heroes,” John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff at the time, a retired Marine Corps general and father of a soldier who died in combat in Afghanistan, told Trump, who famously avoided military service in the 1960s due to, ahem, bone spurs.
We get this from a new book by New Yorker writers Susan Glasser and Peter Baker detailing Trump’s plans for the big parade, which was inspired by him being over in France for Bastile Day.
One thing he didn’t like from the Bastile Day festivities was the sight of soldiers in wheelchairs who were missing limbs.
“In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington,” Kelly told Trump.
“I don’t want them,” Trump replied. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
This from a guy who didn’t want to visit a cemetery in France where 1,800 U.S. Marines who died in battle are buried.
“Why should I go to that cemetery?” Trump said. “It’s filled with losers.”
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Chris Graham
