Fact check: Trump’s excuse for skipping visit to military cemetery in France proven false
Donald Trump is buckling under the revelations of his astonishingly deplorable comments about America’s military service members that were published in The Atlantic this week as veterans, military supporters, and other voters from across the political spectrum vehemently condemned his cowardly and unpatriotic words.
As the president tried to combat the negative fallout from the article and the subsequent media coverage confirming its details, he relied on a tried and true strategy to defend himself — outright lies.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Trump responded to one of the articles main accusations – that he refused to visit a World War I memorial to fallen American soldiers at Belleau Wood in France when he was there for ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I because he didn’t want to have his carefully constructed hairdo be ruined in the rainy weather and because “he did not believe it important to honor American war dead,” as the article says before quoting him saying “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
The president told the reporters the laughably pathetic lie that he was actually so upset about missing the visit to the military cemetery that he “called home” to Melania Trump to tell her how upset he was.
According to Trump’s steel-trap recollection of that day, he “called home, I spoke to my wife and I said ‘I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony.’ And to the one that was the following day which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it.”
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Perhaps that steel-trap mind has accumulated some pretty heavy rust since that day in 2018.
Apparently, Trump did not bother to recollect that his wife was actually with him in France during that trip and it would have been impossible for him to call home to say what he claims to have said, as unlikely as anyone who has followed him closely would believe it anyway.
Proof comes in the form of a statement issued by the first lady’s office at the time of the French visit that read:
“Due to inclement weather, the First Lady and President were unable to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France.”
Instead of attending the event, Trump’s staff claimed inclement weather had made travel to the sight logistically impossible — despite the fact that every European leader managed to attend the ceremony — and sent his then-chief of staff John Kelly, a former general, in his stead.
According to CNN, “Trump spent hours on that Saturday afternoon holed up watching television inside the US ambassador’s residence, people familiar with the situation said.”
How anyone can vote for a presidential candidate who is too incompetent to even get the facts of his lies straight remains one of the. biggest mysteries of the 2020 presidential election.
Sadly, this is one of Trump’s more minor lies.
Vote to restore truth, honor, and accountability to the White House. A vote for Biden is a vote against this disreputable and immoral man currently pretending to be president. Trump must be removed and his legacy of hatred, bigotry, and lack of principles destroyed.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Holmes Lybrand, Tara Subramaniam, and Kevin Liptak at CNN.
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