WASHINGTON — Two decades after attacking another Purple Heart recipient as part of a political campaign, Chris LaCivita is at it again — this time in service of Donald Trump, who evaded the military by claiming he had bone spurs and later called U.S. soldiers “morons” and “losers.”
LaCivita is one of two established political advisers credited with helping the former president, who attempted a coup and was convicted of a crime, run a more effective and professional campaign this time than he did in his 2016 and 2020 elections. Since announcing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee on Tuesday, he has been busy discrediting Walz’s 24 years of service in the National Guard.
Trump’s campaign team, led by LaCivita, and its allies accuse Walz of abandoning his National Guard unit shortly before it was deployed to Iraq and of falsely claiming in his previous congressional campaigns that he had already gained combat experience during a previous overseas deployment.
“He’s going to be a household name,” LaCivita boasted in a social media post. “Like turpentine when we’re done with him.”
LaCivita, 58, did not respond to HuffPost’s questions about why, despite the wounds he suffered and the blood he shed on behalf of the United States during the first Gulf War, he chose to work for a man who has spent decades mocking military service.
In a recent interview with The Atlantic, LaCivita made it clear that morality plays no role in his decision about who he works for. “I never put myself in a position to judge anyone,” he said.
“People hire me to beat the Democrats. That’s what I do. That’s what Chris LaCivita does. He beats the Democrats, period.”
Trump was able to avoid being deployed to Vietnam in the 1960s by claiming he had bone spurs in his feet – although he continued to play sports – and by finding a doctor who was a friend and tenant of his wealthy and influential father and gave him a certificate. Years later, he compared his own fears of catching sexually transmitted diseases from his many encounters with women during this period to the risks faced by U.S. troops in the jungles of Indochina.
“It’s my personal Vietnam,” he said. “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
During his first presidential campaign, Trump denied at one of the candidate forums in Iowa that then-Arizona Senator John McCain, who spent nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison after his plane was shot down, deserved admiration for that. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Later in the 2016 election campaign, he made disparaging comments about the family of a Muslim American soldier who was killed in Iraq.
As president, he famously refused to attend a ceremony at a World War I cemetery in France because it was raining. He derided the U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and instead spent the afternoon tweeting from the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris. He later called soldiers who had died in service to the United States “suckers.”
Although Trump openly mocked U.S. soldiers and their sacrifices for years, LaCivita decided to work for him in 2022. She, like Susie Wiles, is credited with bringing a level of expertise to Trump’s campaign that it had never enjoyed before.
Most recently, that work has involved vilifying Walz, whose decision to continue preparing for retirement rather than stay in uniform for a deployment to Iraq in 2005 is now fodder for LaCivita.
This is familiar territory for him. In 2004, with financial backing from Harlan Crow, a billionaire Republican donor and sponsor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, LaCivita led the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose goal was to discredit the services of then-U.S. Senator John Kerry as he ran against incumbent George W. Bush.
During the Vietnam War, Bush had sought and found a position with the Air National Guard in Texas, which was rather modest compared to Kerry’s previous achievements in the US Navy, which had awarded him a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts as an officer on a patrol boat in action.
LaCivita, who himself was awarded the Purple Heart in 1991 for wartime injuries, nevertheless attacked Kerry in television ads that suggested Kerry did not legitimately deserve the medals and questioned his entire military service. The ads damaged Kerry, who initially assumed no one would believe such ridiculous accusations, and he ended up losing narrowly to Bush.
Twenty years later, Walz is the new target. And while the bulk of the attack is coming from Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, LaCivita is amplifying his message on his social media account, which is followed by numerous campaign reporters.
“When his men needed him most…when they were going into the crucible of combat…he deserted…left them. Why? So he could run for Congress,” LaCivita wrote.
It is unclear why he capitalized the word “Crucible,” although his boss Trump also frequently capitalizes random words in his posts.
And when Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House communications director under Trump, praised Walz’s military service, LaCivita – again appearing to mimic Trump – launched a personal attack on her.
“Man, you really are so stupid,” he wrote.
Mo Elleithee, who worked as a Democratic political consultant on the opposing side of the statewide election in Virginia from LaCivita and now heads Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics, said Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz should not underestimate him.
“Chris is one of the most effective weapons of destruction I have ever known. Anyone who stands on the opposite side of his candidates and ignores his tactics does so at their own peril,” said Elleithee. “Fortunately, Harris’ campaign has learned from the mistakes of Kerry’s campaign and is putting up a strong resistance. He will not let up. Nor should they.”
Rick Wilson, a former Republican political consultant who now works for the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said LaCivita’s attacks on Walz were a diversionary tactic. “Trump’s team is so desperate right now that they think no one will remember Trump’s refusal to avoid active military service,” Wilson said. “We’re not going to stop defending Walz. We’re going straight at Trump and his history of denigrating military personnel and avoiding the draft.”
Trump is facing charges in both Georgia state court and federal court in Washington, D.C., over his attempts to stay in power despite his 2020 election loss. He is already a convicted felon after being found guilty in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal the payment of hush money to a porn star shortly before his 2016 election victory. Additional charges over his refusal to turn over classified documents he took with him when he left the White House for his South Florida country club could be reinstated by an appeals court after being dismissed last month by a judge he appointed.
But if he were to run for president again, he could order his attorney general to drop all federal charges against him and likely delay any further prosecution in state courts against him — including the prison sentence he could face in New York next month — until he leaves office.
HuffPost senior reporter Arthur Delaney contributed to this story.
