Did trump say vets are suckers and losers
Executive summary
The allegation that Donald Trump called U.S. service members who died in combat “suckers” and “losers” stems from a 2020 Atlantic story relying on unnamed sources and has been widely reported and disputed since; several former White House aides have corroborated parts of the reporting while Trump and allies have vehemently denied it, and there is no publicly available audio or video that settles the matter beyond competing witness accounts [1] [2] [3].
1. How the allegation first surfaced and what it specifically claims
Reporting that first drew national attention said Trump canceled a 2018 visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside Paris and privately characterized the graves there as “losers,” and that he called Marines who died at Belleau Wood “suckers,” with the account based on multiple unnamed sources assembled by The Atlantic and summarized in outlets such as NPR and Heavy.com [1] [4].
2. Corroboration from former aides and insiders
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly publicly stated he believed Trump used the language, telling CNN and later confirming in media summaries that Trump didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’” a corroboration cited by Axios and other outlets [2]. Other former aides — for example, Miles Taylor — were reported to corroborate portions of The Atlantic’s account, including Trump’s displeasure at flags lowered for Senator John McCain, according to congressional and campaign reaction pieces [5] [2].
3. Denials from Trump and questions about evidence
Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations, calling the Atlantic story “disgraceful” and asserting people who were there have disputed it; his campaign and allies have labeled the reporting false and politically motivated, as reported by outlets that covered his reactions and campaign statements [4] [6]. News organizations that traced the controversy note there is no publicly available tape of Trump using those words in the cited 2018 exchanges, and fact-checking outlets have had to address doctored or altered videos circulated online that imitated the claim, underlining the lack of incontrovertible audiovisual proof in the public domain [3].
4. Political and public fallout after the story broke
The allegation prompted immediate political fallout: Democrats and veterans groups condemned the reported comments, the Biden campaign used the story in ads contrasting Trump and Biden on veteran respect, and some Republicans publicly defended Trump or said they had not heard him use the language, showing how the claim became a political cudgel in subsequent campaigns and advertisements [1] [7] [6].
5. Public opinion and veteran reactions complicate the narrative
Polling after the initial revelations showed that a majority of U.S. veterans still planned to back Trump in 2020, illustrating that the accusation did not uniformly translate to political punishment and that veteran attitudes about the allegation and the president were mixed and stratified by age and service era, according to polling coverage [8].
6. What can and cannot be concluded from the available reporting
Based on the assembled reporting, it is accurate to say that multiple reputable outlets reported that Trump was alleged to have called fallen U.S. service members “suckers” and “losers,” and that at least one senior former aide — John Kelly — publicly corroborated the core claim; it is equally factual that Trump and many allies deny the allegation and that no publicly verifiable recording has been produced that would definitively prove the utterance, leaving the matter settled only by competing testimonies rather than incontrovertible evidence [1] [2] [3].