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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump is angrily denying a report that he made disparaging remarks about US service members who have been captured or killed, including that he described US war dead at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018 as “losers” and “suckers”.
“This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!” Trump tweeted.
The allegations were reported in The Atlantic.
A senior defence department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior US Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.
The White House swiftly mounted a concerted defence of the president, with Trump’s campaign and allies taking to social media and broadcast interviews to denounce the report.
In the article, defence officials said Trump made the comments as he cancelled visiting the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting following his presidential daily briefing on the morning of 10 November 2018.
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 did not want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers”, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to discuss it publicly.
The White House blamed the cancelled visit on poor weather at the time.
In another conversation on the trip, The Atlantic said, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died in the First World War battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Trump, who travelled to Pennsylvania yesterday, told reporters after he returned to Washington that the Atlantic report was “a disgraceful situation” by a “terrible magazine”.
“I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes,” Trump told the reporters, gathered on the tarmac in the dark.
“There is nobody that respects them more.
“No animal – nobody – what animal would say such a thing?”
Trump also reiterated the White House explanation of why he did not visit the cemetery.
“The helicopter could not fly,” he said, because of the rain and fog.
“The Secret Service told me you can’t do it. … They would never have been able to get the police and everybody else in line to have a president go through a very crowded, very congested area.”
“It’s sad the depths that people will go to during a lead-up to a presidential campaign to try to smear somebody,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox & Friends that he was with the president for a good part of the trip to France.
“I never heard him use the words that are described in that article,” Pompeo said.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that she was part of the discussion about visiting the cemetery.
“This never happened,” she said.
“I have sat in the room when our president called family members after their sons were killed in action and it was heart-wrenching. … I am disgusted by this false attack.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told reporters that “you know in your gut” Trump’s comments, if true, are “deplorable”.
“I’ve just never been as disappointed, in my whole career, with a leader that I’ve worked with, president or otherwise,” Biden added. “If the article is true – and it appears to be, based on other things he’s said – it is absolutely damning. It is a disgrace.”
He added that “the president should humbly apologise to every Gold Star mother and father, to every Blue Star family that he’s denigrated … Who the heck does he think he is?”
“Duty, honour, country — those are the values that drive our service members,” Biden added in a statement, saying that if he is elected president, “I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honour their sacrifice — always”.
Biden’s son Beau served in Iraq in 2008-09.
The defence officials also confirmed reporting in The Atlantic that Trump on Memorial Day 2017 had gone with his chief of staff, John Kelly, to visit the Arlington Cemetery gravesite of Kelly’s son, Robert, who was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan, and said to Kelly: “I don’t get it.
“What was in it for them?”
The senior Marine Corps officer and The Atlantic, citing sources with firsthand knowledge, also reported that Trump said he did not want to support the August 2018 funeral of Republican Senator John McCain, a decorated Navy veteran who spent years as a Vietnam prisoner of war, because he was a “loser”.
I was never a big fan of John McCain, disagreed with him on many things including ridiculous endless wars and the lack of success he had in dealing with the VA and our great Vets, but the lowering of our Nations American Flags, and the first class funeral he was given by our....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020
Diversity training
Meanwhile, Trump has also called anti-racism training sessions for governmental agencies “divisive, anti-American propaganda”.
The comments were contained in a memo as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was directed to crack down on spending relating to learning about subjects such as white privilege.
OMB director Russell Vought asked federal agencies to identify spending related to any training on “critical race theory” or any other material that teaches or suggests that the United States or any race or ethnicity is “inherently racist or evil”.
Trump has spent much of the summer defending the display of the Confederate battle flag and monuments of Civil War rebels from protesters seeking their removal, in what he has called a culture war” ahead of the 3 November election.
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This is not new news. Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths. I know plenty that are planning on taking redundancy and are happy to do so as they are earning decent salaries, and many have been in the job a long time and are looking forward to nice fat redundancy cheques. Good luck to them I say.
So, not necessarily hard times you say, it might well be the end of hard times.
So , if as you say ”Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths.”… Why did the government not ”do ” something to prevent it ,or why was it not announced before the vote last Thursday ?
I will tell you why and that is the same reason Irish Rails job losses were not announce because the government knew it would have effected the way people would have subsequently voted. The same way they announced all the new jobs , which in fairnes will probably not come to anything til 2015.
If those people, in pfizer, get a good redundancy package I would take it too and run…
Susie, please don’t ask sensible questions. The Ffg/Labour auto-bots cannot process sensible questions. Their supreme leader is infallible.
Susie read the article. The patent on one of their main drugs is running out. They can’t afford to keep producing it against rivals who will make it on the cheap. What do you want the government to do exactly ?
Susie, Lipitor came off patent here. It is no longer viable for pfizer to manufacture it, as all the generics can do it now.
This brings the cost of a medicine down, albeit at the cost of those jobs.
Pharma is a huge industry in cork, especially in little island and ringaskiddy. Experienced pharmacutical workers are in demand down here. Those workers will get reducdancy packs, and shouldn’t have much difficulty picking up a new job in one of the many other tabletting plants nearby.
What do you think the govt should “do” in this situation? To me it looks like the timeline of normal pharma business.
Hopefully a new drug will be produced at the plant between now and next year and the jobs could be saved.
Good points Susie yet again.
Vote Yes for Jobs
And a no vote would have preserved the patents on drugs produced in Ireland? This news has absolutely nothing to do with any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland.
Oh I know that – you see before I made up my mind on which way I was going to vote. Every single job announcement on this website was followed with the Vote yes for jobs when they had nothing to do with “any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland”, so using the same illogical logic I say “Vote Yes for Jobs” now.
Terrible news…
While I voted no this has nothing to do with treaties just as a previous poster said the patents hav run out and it’s now an open market.
It may mean that with patents expiring the price will go down thus demand may rise in areas where they previously it was not bought.
No sign of Enda Kenny or Richard Bruton! I mean Enda was first to get his face in when a whole 40 new jobs were being announce a couple of weeks ago!
What can he do that’s beyond his power
Peter, according to your logic, its OK for Enda to do photo ops when jobs are announced, and its doubly OK for Enda to scurry away into some hole when Job losses are announced. Damn the FFg/Labour auto-bots are simply sickening. Its solidarity that the people want to see, not some moron who only shows up to get his Photo in the papers and news when job announcements are made, He is a lieing, obnoxious traitor, who wouldnt debate the referendum, but is happy to be seen anywhere that makes him look ‘good’.
Cal, local TD Simon Coveney has been out today to express his regret at the job losses.
The only thing this has to do with the treaty is the timing of the announcement, like with Dublin bus. Openness and transparency alright!
Good luck to all effected.
Generic = cheaper,so every cloud eh
This was always on the cards as the life cycle of Lipitor was coming to an end and as others have said it was known 18 months ago. It is also the reason why the pharma companies are looking towards biopharma as a solution to the problem of patent expiration due to the complexities of producing generic or bio-similar drugs even if the patent has finished.
One thing the health boards can do, is to make sure that the cheaper generic medicines, which will be prescribed, are manufactured in Ireland.
A sad day
Expect more of this, alot more. To all those in the HSE wishing to push down drug prices to ridiculous levels there will be consequences to your actions. Generic substitution and more importantly reference pricing at the dispensing end in no way guarantee that the generics the government pays for are actually manufactured here, probably the contrary in fact. This doesn’t even begin to address drug “shortages” which in actuality are simply manufacturers diverting supply to more profitable larger markets than Ireland.
have your say