WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s campaign team was warned not to take photos before an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week during a wreath-laying ceremony honoring soldiers killed during the withdrawal from the Afghanistan war, a defense official told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter related to Monday’s events. A day earlier, NPR reported, citing a source familiar with the incident, that two Trump campaign staffers “verbally abused and shoved aside” a cemetery official when he tried to prevent them from filming and taking photographs in Section 60, the burial site for service members killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The defense official told AP that the Trump campaign team had been warned before their arrival and the confrontation not to take photos in Section 60. Trump was in Arlington on Monday at the invitation of some family members of the 13 soldiers killed in the Kabul airport bombing exactly three years earlier.
“What was absolutely clear was: Section 60, no photos and no video,” the defense official said.
Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place of over 400,000 military personnel, veterans and their families.
Visitors have long taken photos of graves at Arlington National Cemetery, considered hallowed ground for the U.S. military, but in a statement released Tuesday, defense officials drew a distinction between the actions of a campaign and those of ordinary visitors.
@realdonaldtrump This should never have happened.
♬ Original sound – President Donald J. Trump
“Federal law prohibits political campaigning or election-related activities at Army National Cemetery military cemeteries, including photographers, content creators, or others who are there for the purposes of or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery officials said in a statement. “Arlington National Cemetery has emphasized this law and its prohibitions and has communicated it widely to all attendees. We can confirm that there was an incident and a report was filed.” The organization did not provide further details.
It was not immediately clear to whom the report was made, but the incident occurred on U.S. Army property. Army headquarters did not immediately respond to requests for clarification Tuesday evening. The Army Criminal Investigation Division said it had not been informed of the incident.
Despite the guidelines, the Trump team finally released a video taken in Arlington on Wednesday.
The campaign video posted on TikTok shows Trump at the third anniversary ceremony. In the video, Trump can be seen at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, walking among marble tombstones as soft guitar music plays, and Trump can be heard criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.
Steven Cheung, communications director for Trump’s campaign, said there was “no physical altercation as described,” that the campaign had been given permission to bring a photographer and that they were “prepared to release footage” to defend themselves against “defamatory allegations.”
“The fact is that a private photographer was allowed access to the grounds and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, obviously suffering from a mental disorder, decided to block access to members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” he said.
The defense official familiar with the matter supported the cemetery employee, saying that while the campaign was allowed to bring a photographer into the cemetery, it was “correct” to remind campaign employees that different rules apply in other parts of the facility.
The Trump campaign did not immediately release the footage it claimed to have.
INVITATION BY FAMILIES
Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, pointed out that Trump was there at the invitation of the families of the soldiers killed in the airport bombing.
LaCivita, who was wounded in combat as a Marine, has been a leader in Republican efforts to criticize Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s narrative about his military service. He previously led the Republican campaign against John Kerry’s military service during the 2004 election campaign.
“For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is disgraceful and does not deserve to represent the hollow ground of Arlington National Cemetery,” he said in a written statement, misspelling the word “sacred.” “Whoever this individual is, by spreading these lies, he dishonors the men and women of our armed forces.”
On Tuesday evening, the campaign released a statement from five relatives of slain U.S. soldiers who said they had given Trump’s official photographer and videographer permission to accompany the cemetery visit on Monday and wanted the event to be “respectfully captured.”
“The President and his team have behaved with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity toward all of our troops, especially our beloved children,” the statement said.
Michael Tyler, a spokesman for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, called the reports “pretty sad, given everything you say and do.”
“That’s what we expect from Donald Trump and his team,” Tyler said on CNN. “Donald Trump is a person who wants to make everything about Donald Trump. He’s also someone who has a history of degrading and humiliating military personnel who have made the ultimate sacrifice.”
Allison Jaslow, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement that Arlington National Cemetery is a sacred place where partisan political activity should be taboo.
“Any aspiring elected official, especially one who aspires to be commander in chief, should be aware of this fact,” Jaslow said. “Nor should they hide behind members of our community to justify their policies on such hallowed ground.”
COX campaign apologizes
Utah Governor Spencer Cox also came under criticism on Wednesday for including a photo of himself and Trump at the ceremony in a campaign email asking for donations for his re-election.
The Republican governor recently surprised voters when he pledged his support for Trump shortly after the July assassination attempt, even though he had said on CNN days earlier that he did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 and would not vote for him again this year. Cox’s sudden embrace of Trump, who has not endorsed him, represents a puzzling departure from his carefully cultivated persona as a Mitt Romney-style moderate.
Cox’s campaign team apologized for using the photo and politicizing the memorial service.
“This was not a campaign event and was never intended for use by the campaign,” the governor wrote in a post on social media platform X. “It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent out.”
Democratic U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia called on the cemetery administration to release more information about Monday’s events.
“It is sad but all too predictable that Donald Trump would desecrate this sacred ground and put campaign politics above honoring our heroes,” he said. “His conduct and that of his campaign is abhorrent and disgraceful.”
Trump’s running mate JD Vance was asked about the incident at a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday and said that “apparently someone at Arlington Cemetery, a staff member, had a little disagreement with someone” and “the media made it a national headline.”
Instead, he tried to focus on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling Harris a “disgrace” for not firing anyone over the deaths of soldiers in the terrorist attack. “She can go to hell,” Vance said.
The terrorist militia “Islamic State” claimed responsibility for the attack.
A Pentagon investigation into the deadly attack concluded that the suicide bomber acted alone and the deaths of more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. soldiers were unavoidable. But critics have slammed the Biden administration for the disastrous evacuation, saying it should have started sooner.
Information for this article was contributed by Tara Copp, Adriana Gomez Licon, Hannah Schoenbaum, Michelle L. Price and Farnoush Amiri of The Associated Press and Dan Lamothe, Hannah Knowles, Alex Horton and Hau Chu of The Washington Post.
Bill Barnett, left, grandfather of Darin Taylor Hoover, and Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in honor of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
