Trump: Americans who died in war are 'losers' and 'suckers'

[homersapien 11,409]

10 hours ago, AUDub said:

As for Bolton outright stating it didn't happen, here's an interview from this morning. 

 

“I didn’t hear him say those things,” he said, adding later he probably would have included the remarks in his book if he had. “Now, did he say those things to other people later in the day? It’s certainly possible.”

Not exactly exculpatory.

Only a Trump cultist would say that "proved" it didn't happen.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

58 minutes ago, homersapien said:

You left out his dissing the Gold Star family. 

This is clearly a pattern.  It will stick - even if it doesn't with the cultists.

The Gold Star family diss wasn't a part of today's immediate story or rebuttal.  That's an extrapolation of a larger pattern.  It's important to stay focused on this story as it stands.

[homersapien 11,409]

35 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

The Gold Star family diss wasn't a part of today's immediate story or rebuttal.  That's an extrapolation of a larger pattern.  It's important to stay focused on this story as it stands.

No, but that's exactly my point.

It illustrates Trump's pattern of disrespecting - or not fully appreciating - the sacrifices of military families.  In this case, by pettily implying a cultural dig aimed at the couples religious beliefs:

"Mr. Trump told Mr. Stephanopoulos that Mr. Khan seemed like a “nice guy” and that he wished him “the best of luck.” But, he added, “If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.”

Mr. Trump also told Maureen Dowd of The New York Times on Friday night, “I’d like to hear his wife say something.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/us/politics/donald-trump-khizr-khan-wife-ghazala.html

It's part of the factual background that lends credence to the incident at hand.

 

 

 

[IronMan70 3,277]

First an overall comment. We see the same pattern we have watched play out over the last few years. A media outlet posts an article making charges using unnamed sources, other media outlets write articles about the article, politicians then express outrage about the accusations from the unnamed sources, cable talking heads do the same, supporters follow suit, then we rinse and repeat. We saw the same tactic used in the Russia Russia case, in the Covington kids case and in numerous others. We even see this pattern used by the triggered echo chamber on this board. So with that context in mind and the context of my original post on this topic.....  

On 9/4/2020 at 10:54 AM, IronMan70 said:

This is why. 'Most' people don't accept or react to unsourced articles from a media already discredited. Didn't we go through this for 3 years with one unsourced article after another claiming "Trump is a Russian spy" ? Come on people.

....although I don't intend to spend a lot of time on this, a brief comment to the following responses grouped together:  

On 9/4/2020 at 11:17 AM, AUDub said:

1. Anonymous sources on their own are reason to be skeptical, but some of the most important news stories in history have been sourced anonymously. WaPo and Watergate? Boston Globe and the Catholic sex abuse scandal?

2. It's perfectly on brand for Trump, so I'm inclined to believe it. 

Knowing you, you'll move the goalposts the moment one of these officials is revealed publicly either way.

1. You certainly aren't trying to say the media standards from 45 years ago remotely resemble what we see today are you ? After all the "anonymous source" articles from the MSM, the American public has had to endure the last 4 years, the credibility of that tactic has been justifiably discredited.

2. "Knowing you", in spite of the evidence disproving these claims (11 people on the record, contemporaneous military communications) you will ignore that and continue to "believe" the so called anonymous sources. 

On 9/4/2020 at 11:18 AM, TitanTiger said:

The problem with this line of argumentation is, the very same people who will try to discredit an article because it comes from a source they don't like, or that it uses unnamed sources (as if that hasn't been standard practice when the risk of retaliation is high) will turn right around and gobble up bull**** about Obama's birth certificate, or they'll give credence to Hillary and Pizzagate, or they'll believe randos on YouTube and Facebook making unscientific claims about COVID over documented scientific evidence and experts, or they'll buy into shadowy, secret missives from QAnon.  

Point being:  It isn't about unnamed sources because if it was, they wouldn't buy into half the bull**** they do.  The real brass tacks of the matter is that it says something they don't like and that attacks their guy.  If the same level of sourcing was undermining Biden in some way, they'd have no trouble accepting it.

There is no "problem with this kind of argumentation". This is about this case. Talking about the motives of people you have dealt with in other cases might be a good topic but it doesn't address this. The "point being" is, that is a deflection from the case at hand. I think your buddy above just mentioned something about "moving the goalposts". In this case we have anonymous sources on one side vs 11 known sources on the other, plus copies of military communications.

On 9/4/2020 at 11:32 AM, aubiefifty said:

are you saying all the whoppers trump has told is fake news? and i am pretty sure a few names were dropped because unlike you i read the article. at the freaking very least you owe it to those that gave their lives for our county and others the benefit of the doubt. to go research it yourself instead of allowing a peace of crap to diss soldiers who gave all. the sorry bastid was more worried about getting his hair wet than paying honest tribute. and he has done this before with mccain. so now what excuse ya got?

When you decide to accept anonymous accusations and get outraged about those accusations the same as if they were facts, nobody needs an excuse. Even Biden had the sense to say "if they are true" before he went ahead with his tirade anyway. However apparently you didn't read the article. No names are credited to the central accusations other than anonymous. Finally, as a fellow VNM vet I decided McCain was a snake long before Trump ever came on the scene but that is a side issue. 

 

 

[homersapien 11,409]

22 hours ago, AUDub said:

Trump tore into John Kelly today during his presser. OK but why tho. 

I suspect that Trump is certain Kelly is one of the unnamed sources.  But it certainly doesn't seem to make sense he would tear into him.  Maybe he's anticipating Kelly speaking out?

I agree with Cassidy, it's time for Kelly to rethink his position.  I hope he does.

It’s Time for the Former General John Kelly to Speak Out About Trump’s Views on the Military

By John Cassidy

September 5, 2020

 

It’s been two days since The Atlantic published an article claiming that Donald Trump had called U.S. service members who died in combat “losers” and “suckers,” and the uproar over the story hasn’t relented. Other news outlets, including Fox News, have confirmed various parts of the story, while some current and former members of the Trump Administration have called parts of it false. The best way to resolve the controversy would be for John Kelly, the highly decorated military veteran who served as Trump’s chief of staff, from 2017 to 2019, to say publicly what he knows. He ought to do this without hesitation.

So far, Kelly hasn’t commented on The Atlantic’s story, even though he features in it so prominently that Trump suggested on Friday that Kelly might have been one of its sources, who weren’t named. The former four-star general was with the President in Paris, in November, 2018, when Trump abruptly cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, in Belleau, blaming poor weather. After Trump decided not to go to the cemetery, Kelly stood in for him as a representative of the Administration.

On the face of things, Kelly would be in a unique position to vouch for, or knock down, a key passage of The Atlantic’s story, which reads, “In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, ‘Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.’ ” In a separate conversation on the same trip to France, The Atlantic’s story reports, Trump referred to some of the U.S. marines who are buried at the French cemetery “as ‘suckers’ for getting killed.”

Kelly hasn’t denied The Atlantic’s story, but neither has he publicly confirmed it. According to a report by Annie Karni, a White House correspondent for the Times, he “has told associates that a retired four-star general should not come out against a sitting president in the heat of a political campaign.” Karni also reported that a close associate of Kelly’s, Anthony C. Zinni, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, said, “He wants to avoid taking a position that might be perceived as political. I also think he takes to heart the commitment to confidentiality in matters related to their interaction with the president.”

Keeping the military out of politics and following through on a commitment of confidentiality are both commendable goals, and, in normal times, they might be enough to warrant Kelly’s silence. But these aren’t normal times, and this isn’t a normal President. Since entering the White House, Trump has repeatedly flouted the Constitution by defying congressional subpoenas, obstructing special-counsel investigations, and claiming that he has the power to deploy troops in American cities without the approval of governors. Like all members of the military and government officials, Kelly swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, “foreign and domestic,” when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1970. In addition to creating virtually unprecedented political strife, Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, now stands accused of scorning the roughly 1.3 million active-duty members of the U.S. military, plus the more than eight hundred thousand people who serve in the reserves, and the roughly eighteen million veterans.

If Kelly can confirm key elements of The Atlantic’s story, he surely owes it to these current and former service members, and to the rest of the country, to stand up and do so. If he can’t confirm some of the allegations, he should still come forward and speak about Trump’s attitude toward the military. He could follow the example of John Bolton, Trump’s former national-security adviser, who was also on the 2018 trip to Paris. Referring to the offensive comments about the American war dead that Trump allegedly made, Bolton told the Times, “I didn’t hear that. I’m not saying he didn’t say them later in the day or another time, but I was there for that discussion.” In an interview with Bloomberg News, Bolton said, “I have not heard anybody say, ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound like the Donald Trump I know.’ ” Bolton also said, “I don’t think he really holds anybody in high regard except his family.”

As Kelly has maintained his silence, Trump and his associates have been pushing back aggressively against the story. On Friday, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, accused The Atlantic of “peddling conspiracy-laden propaganda.” On Twitter, one of McEnany’s predecessors, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who flew to Paris with Trump in 2018, called the story “BS” and added, “I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion—this never happened.” Another former Trump aide, Jordan Karem, said that the story was “not even close to being factually accurate.”

Meanwhile, a number of other media organizations said they had independently confirmed various elements of The Atlantic’s story, including the remarks about “losers” that Trump was reported to have made in Paris. Citing a “senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments,” James LaPorta, of the Associated Press, wrote, “The defense officials said Trump made the comments as he begged off visiting the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting following his presidential daily briefing on the morning of Nov. 10, 2018.” The A.P. story goes on: “Staffers from the National Security Council and the Secret Service told Trump that rainy weather made helicopter travel to the cemetery risky, but they could drive there. Trump responded by saying he didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was ‘filled with losers,’ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss it publicly.”

Jennifer Griffin, a national-security correspondent for Fox News, cited in her report a former Administration official who was on the trip to Paris with Trump. This person said that Trump cancelled the trip to the French cemetery because he was mad at Emmanuel Macron, the French President. Reporting on other sets of conversations between the President and his aides, but quoting the same official, Griffin said that Trump remarked, of the Vietnam War, “It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker,” and said of American veterans generally, “What’s in it for them? They don’t make any money.”

According to The Atlantic, “What was in it for them?” was the question Trump asked Kelly on Memorial Day, in 2017, during a visit to Arlington Cemetery, the final resting place of Kelly’s son, Robert, a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, who was killed in Afghanistan, in 2010. Citing sources close to Kelly, The Atlantic said that Kelly initially believed Trump was “making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.”

Kelly clearly does. He retired from the military in January, 2016, after a forty-five-year career that included three tours of duty in Iraq and culminated in him serving as head of the U.S. Southern Command. That amounts to a great deal of service to the United States, but Kelly can do for the country one more vital act. He should speak out.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/its-time-for-the-former-general-john-kelly-to-speak-out-about-trumps-views-on-the-military?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_090520&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9fa8a2ddf9c72dc88e2ba&cndid=33673769&hasha=f8c1eef0e1523da3db220f464ea504fc&hashb=9949e85b7ec4b8fe25f0d3c82ee91ac4ef2626fe&hashc=57dd36123c85cdfe59be2bebc7791ac86daa77a70b0ff0bedb95dab21e96374a&esrc=Auto_Subs&utm_term=TNY_Daily

[aubiefifty 16,848]

21 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

First an overall comment. We see the same pattern we have watched play out over the last few years. A media outlet posts an article making charges using unnamed sources, other media outlets write articles about the article, politicians then express outrage about the accusations from the unnamed sources, cable talking heads do the same, supporters follow suit, then we rinse and repeat. We saw the same tactic used in the Russia Russia case, in the Covington kids case and in numerous others. We even see the this pattern used by the echo chamber on this board. With that context in mind and the context of my original post on this topic.....  

  On 9/4/2020 at 9:54 AM, IronMan70 said:

This is why. 'Most' people don't accept or react to unsourced articles from a media already discredited. Didn't we go through this for 3 years with one unsourced article after another claiming "Trump is a Russian spy" ? Come on people.

....a brief comment to the following responses grouped together:  

1. You certainly aren't trying to say the media standards from 45 years ago remotely resemble what we see today are you ? After the "anonymous source" articles from the MSM, the American public has had to endure the last 4 years, the credibility of that tactic has been justifiably discredited.

2. "Knowing you", in spite of the evidence disproving these claims (11 people on the record, contemporaneous military communications) you will ignore that and continue to "believe" the so called anonymous sources. 

There is no "problem with this kind of argumentation". This is about this case. Talking about the motives of people you have dealt with in other cases might be a good topic but it doesn't address this. The "point being" is, that is a deflection from the case at hand. I think your buddy above just mentioned something about "moving the goalposts". In this case we have anonymous sources on one side vs 11 known sources on the other, plus copies of military communications.

When you decide to accept anonymous accusations and get outraged about those accusations the same as if they were facts, nobody needs an excuse. Even Biden had the sense to say "if they are true" before he went ahead with his tirade anyway. However apparently you didn't read the article. No names are credited to the central accusations other than anonymous. Finally, as a fellow VNM vet I decided McCain was a snake long before Trump ever came on the scene but that is a side issue. 

 

 

the sources came forward. fox admitted it. then they came back and said it was not true. then they came back and said it was true......

[TexasTiger 12,974]

On 9/4/2020 at 1:08 PM, SocialCircle said:

You are correct as I don't believe it unless I see proof.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she was there and this is total BS.  

Were her lips moving when she said it?

[AUFAN78 3,926]

15 hours ago, AUDub said:

It took General Kelly and General Dunford about 90. Instead, he and Melania stayed at the ambassador's residence.

Had Trump wanted to go, he could have. Not to mention every other European head of state present, and Trudeau from Canada, made the trip. It was a huge deal and looked very bad at the time.

According to Twitter sure.   I'd wait for real evidence. Some of us remember Russia.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

8 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

 

These are spot on.  If it was just The Atlantic, I'd be very skeptical.  But as I've said already, you have a variety of news outlets from across the political spectrum verifying this story on their own accord.  If you're unfamiliar, they don't all sit in a room and talk to the same folks on a conference call.  Each reporter has their own sources who are called individually.  For all of those outlets to get the same story independently of each other is a massive deal.

Russia immediately comes to mind. 

[AUFAN78 3,926]

8 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

We saw the denials.  We expected the denials.

We also saw that other sources including Fox News confirmed these accounts.  Unnamed sources or not, you're nuts if you think your cadre of denials makes it an open and shut case.

The posts I deleted weren't relevant (that were mostly insults).  The ones I left were.  

Now either behave like someone who belongs in a serious discussion forum or find another place to taint.

Apologies for making a few statements not in accordance to this forum guidelines. It was seriously late last night before I even realized what forum I was in. No excuses, simply apologies.

I listened to a c span interview recently where it was claimed the media at large have misrepresented truth over 300,000 times in the Trump era. Why would that surprise anyone? For roughly 50% of Americans it likely wouldn't. 

[AUFAN78 3,926]

2 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

First an overall comment. We see the same pattern we have watched play out over the last few years. A media outlet posts an article making charges using unnamed sources, other media outlets write articles about the article, politicians then express outrage about the accusations from the unnamed sources, cable talking heads do the same, supporters follow suit, then we rinse and repeat. We saw the same tactic used in the Russia Russia case, in the Covington kids case and in numerous others. We even see this pattern used by the triggered echo chamber on this board. So with that context in mind and the context of my original post on this topic.....  

  On 9/4/2020 at 9:54 AM, IronMan70 said:

This is why. 'Most' people don't accept or react to unsourced articles from a media already discredited. Didn't we go through this for 3 years with one unsourced article after another claiming "Trump is a Russian spy" ? Come on people.

....although I don't intend to spend a lot of time on this, a brief comment to the following responses grouped together:  

1. You certainly aren't trying to say the media standards from 45 years ago remotely resemble what we see today are you ? After all the "anonymous source" articles from the MSM, the American public has had to endure the last 4 years, the credibility of that tactic has been justifiably discredited.

2. "Knowing you", in spite of the evidence disproving these claims (11 people on the record, contemporaneous military communications) you will ignore that and continue to "believe" the so called anonymous sources. 

There is no "problem with this kind of argumentation". This is about this case. Talking about the motives of people you have dealt with in other cases might be a good topic but it doesn't address this. The "point being" is, that is a deflection from the case at hand. I think your buddy above just mentioned something about "moving the goalposts". In this case we have anonymous sources on one side vs 11 known sources on the other, plus copies of military communications.

When you decide to accept anonymous accusations and get outraged about those accusations the same as if they were facts, nobody needs an excuse. Even Biden had the sense to say "if they are true" before he went ahead with his tirade anyway. However apparently you didn't read the article. No names are credited to the central accusations other than anonymous. Finally, as a fellow VNM vet I decided McCain was a snake long before Trump ever came on the scene but that is a side issue. 

 

 

Nailed it. Simply nailed it. Russia, Ukraine, Kavanaugh, Jussie Smollett, Covington kids, etc. It would literally take hours, days, weeks to provide the full list of media lies and every honest person here knows it. This is politics. Nothing more. 

[TexasTiger 12,974]

29 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Nailed it. Simply nailed it. Russia, Ukraine, Kavanaugh, Jussie Smollett, Covington kids, etc. It would literally take hours, days, weeks to provide the full list of media lies and every honest person here knows it. This is politics. Nothing more. 

You reflexively dismiss any criticism or negative news like a good little cultist.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

Russia immediately comes to mind. 

Which the Republican Senate has verified

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

Apologies for making a few statements not in accordance to this forum guidelines. It was seriously late last night before I even realized what forum I was in. No excuses, simply apologies.

Also, way to man up on this.  Serious kudos

[AUFAN78 3,926]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

You reflexively dismiss any criticism or negative news like a good little cultist.

I criticize media lies and misrepresentations. Cultist eat them up.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

46 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Also, way to man up on this.  Serious kudos

No prob. It was the right thing to do.

[RunInRed 16,454]

Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin defended her reporting confirming The Atlantic’s story detailing how President Donald Trump disparaged veterans and war dead as “losers” and “suckers.”

“Jennifer I’m not sure if you are aware, but the president has been tweeting about you saying that ‘Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for a comment. FOX News is gone,'” Neil Cavuto said to Griffin on his live Saturday show. “What do you think?”

“Well, first of all, I was in constant contact. John Roberts was working his story at the White House and I was working my sources,” Griffin responded. “We teamed up as you saw at the top of Bret Baier’s show and our reports were straight down the middle as always. You know, Neil, Deep Throat was an unnamed source. It didn’t make what he said untrue.”

She added, “My sources are not anonymous to me and I doubt they are anonymous the president.”

Trump on Friday called on Fox News to fire Griffin for her reporting on the Atlantic story adding in a tweet, “All refuted by many witnesses. Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment.”

However, Griffin maintained the reliability of her sources telling Cavuto, “My sources are unimpeachable. I feel very confident with what we have reported at FOX. Not every line of the Atlantic article did I confirm, but I would say that most of the descriptions and the quotes in that Atlantic article I did find people who were able to confirm and so you know I feel very confident in my reporting.”

[AUFAN78 3,926]

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/05/journalisms-new-propaganda-tool-using-confirmed-to-mean-its-opposite/

[SocialCircle 570]

3 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

You reflexively dismiss any criticism or negative news like a good little cultist.

There now are several who were there who say it didn’t happen. The only people saying it happened are anonymous. They are anonymously claiming it 2 years after it happened. Let’s at least be fair. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

10 minutes ago, SocialCircle said:

There now are several who were there who say it didn’t happen. The only people saying it happened are anonymous. They are anonymously claiming it 2 years after it happened. Let’s at least be fair. 

Again though, Deep Throat was an anonymous source.  Nixon and others denied it.  Turned out it was true.

It's ignorant to dismiss reports because the sources are anonymous.

[AUDub 11,160]

45 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/05/journalisms-new-propaganda-tool-using-confirmed-to-mean-its-opposite/

 

[TitanTiger 20,506]

Donald Trump hates anonymous sources. But he cited them to falsely claim Obama was born in Kenya.

Just kidding.  He doesn't hate anonymous sources just like none of the people here do.  They just hate when anonymous sources (who have every reason to fear reprisal if they go on the record) make their team or their guy look bad.

[SocialCircle 570]

32 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Again though, Deep Throat was an anonymous source.  Nixon and others denied it.  Turned out it was true.

It's ignorant to dismiss reports because the sources are anonymous.

I still believe in innocent until proven guilty. This is especially the case in today’s world with so much fake news on both sides. It is ignorant to believe something without proof. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, SocialCircle said:

I still believe in innocent until proven guilty. This is especially the case in today’s world with so much fake news on both sides. It is ignorant to believe something without proof. 

Innocent until proven guilty is a legal standard.  This is not a legal issue.

[aubiefifty 16,848]

On 9/4/2020 at 6:36 PM, AUFAN78 said:

We now have 10 people in the room at decision time, including John Bolton no friend of Trump, saying this did not happen. 

Admit you are gullible, a clown puppet and move along. 

you guys just need to admit trump was your great white hope and he is seriously damaged goods. you guys even deny he mishandled covid with all the facts out there. he is seriously damaged goods and you folks take your hurt and sorrow out on dems and anyone not team trump. everyone lies but trump. everything is fake news if it is not praising trump. good grief trump has basically called his followers idiots by bragging he can shoot someone and you guys will not care. and he is right. most of you guys prove it every single day on these boards. and the scary thing about all this is the man still has a decent chance to win reelection.