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Donald Trump is facing new questions on Thursday about a stunt the former president filmed at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week. Photos of the 45th president giving a big thumbs up were the first to surface in an incredibly tacky, if typical, move for Trump. But new revelations from that day have been trickling out, including allegations of a physical altercation between Trump’s staff and a staff member at Arlington, as well as the fact that Trump likely broke federal law while filming the ad at the cemetery.
It all started Monday when Trump appeared at Arlington for a wreath-laying ceremony wreath for 13 U.S. military service members killed at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan during the American withdrawal in 2021. Federal regulations prohibit the filming of campaign commercials and the production of publicity material, but Trump brought along a crew to document his little stunt.
As the New York Times points out, Trump was in a heavily restricted part of the cemetery known as Section 60, which is primarily for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when a staff member at Arlington approached his camera crew. There was a physical altercation, with Trump’s staff insisting they should be allowed to film in the restricted area for their stupid little commercial.
The Arlington staff member has reportedly declined to press charges against Trump because it “could subject her to retaliation from Trump supporters,” as the Times reports. And that’s a reasonable fear, given the fact that Trump is the guy who tried to literally overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021, and his followers are some of the most violent extremists around.
The Trump camp has tried to play down the incident and campaign spokesman Steven Cheung even slandered the Arlington staff member as mentally unstable on Wednesday.
“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung told NPR.
Cheung added to NPR, “We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.” But no footage showing details of the physical altercation has been released yet and NPR writes that when a reporter asked to see the footage, the Trump campaign declined.
The Army released a new statement about the incident on Thursday to defend the unnamed staff member at Arlington (ANC), who was simply trying to enforce the rules.
“Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” an unnamed Army spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Thursday.
“This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve,” the statement continued.
The Trump campaign has released several staged videos from that day, and Trump himself says in one of the videos he’s churned out for social media that, “We lost 13 people great, great people, what a horrible day it was,” referring to the last day U.S. forces were officially in Afghanistan under wartime conditions. And then Trump insisted, “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months and then they took over that disaster of leaving Afghanistan.” That’s simply not true, of course. The Associated Press fact-checked his claim back in 2022 and reported there was no 18-month period during his presidency without casualties in Afghanistan.
But all of that is really beside the point. Trump clearly broke the law by trying this idiotic move at a place widely revered as a site of quiet contemplation. As he does with everything, Trump turned it into a circus all about himself.
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) August 26, 2024
The law Trump broke by filming at the cemetery is 32 CFR § 553.32, according to the Washington Post, which prohibits any politician from engaging in political activity at the site. The newspaper talked with legal experts who emphatically explained that “if the campaign was filming during the wreath-laying ceremony for partisan political activities, that would be a violation of federal law.”
Trump is struggling in the national polls, as he and Kamala Harris have just a little over two months before Election Day. And it’s clear that Trump will do anything he can—including breaking federal law—in a desperate bid to retake power. With any luck, the former president will fail in those efforts. But things could get a lot weirder before they get any better on November 8.
