The late senator was unwilling to allow Trump to display a false flag out of respect for military service.
Donald Trump visits Arlington National Cemetery
Former President Donald Trump laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery alongside Gold Star families and soldiers.
Fox – 10 Phoenix
Donald Trump tried to hold a campaign rally at Arlington National Cemetery this week, and the late U.S. Senator John McCain would not have let him get away with it.
Trump visited Arlington on Monday, ostensibly to commemorate the Americans killed in an attack on the third anniversary of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But don’t worry: it was an election campaign event.
Otherwise, Trump would have focused on the individual victims instead of posting on his website Truth Social: “This month marks the third anniversary of the most embarrassing moment in our country’s history.” He also posted a video on social media.
Of course, the election campaign in Arlington is embarrassing.
Arlington does not allow such photos
In addition, it is illegal, which likely led to a dispute between cemetery officials and Trump supporters, because photos and videos were taken in an area of the cemetery called Section 60, where many U.S. soldiers killed in recent conflicts are buried.
The incident was first reported by NPR.
Trump’s aides said they had done nothing wrong, but the cemetery noted in a statement: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election activities at U.S. Army military cemeteries, including photographers, content creators, or others who are there for that purpose or in direct support of the campaign of a partisan political candidate.”
This happened in the week of the sixth anniversary of the death of US Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose ghost has since taken up residence in Trump’s head.
I guess McCain did his part to remind the media that this week also marks the sixth anniversary of the petty and vindictive way Trump handled McCain’s death until he was ashamed to do the right thing.
McCain had long lived in Trump’s head
The senator died on a Saturday. Traditionally, flags are flown at half-staff for such a person and remain so until their funeral. Trump’s White House raised its flag again the following Monday.
There was a tremendous outcry from politicians of both parties and from virtually every other decent, respectful person in the country.
Trump then signed the proclamation that caused the White House flag (and other flags) to fly at half-staff until the day of McCain’s funeral.
McCain is not a musical in Trump’s mind: This is reality TV
The incident in Arlington this week was a reminder of that, and also a reminder of how Trump said of McCain, who survived five years of torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
It reminded people that Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, had said that Trump had called American war victims “suckers.”
You may not believe in ghosts, but Trump must
McCain was still alive when he began pursuing Trump.
In his style of putting country before party, McCain sharply criticized Trump for kowtowing to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, saying of Trump, “No president before him has ever humbled himself so much before a tyrant.”
A year after McCain’s death, Trump traveled to Japan on a state visit and learned that the U.S. Navy’s USS John McCain might be in sight during his stay. Trump was so shocked by the coincidence that he ordered the ship’s name to be covered with a tarp.
It seems that every time Trump tries to cloak himself under a false flag of patriotism or respect for the military, McCain does something to prove us wrong.
Of course, you may not believe in ghosts. And I may not believe in ghosts either.
But I would bet Donald Trump does.
Reach Montini at [email protected].
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