What evidence did The Atlantic present for its report that Trump called veterans 'suckers' and 'losers'?
Executive summary
The Atlantic’s 2020 report that Donald Trump called some American war dead “losers” and U.S. Marines “suckers” rested primarily on contemporaneous, on-background accounts from multiple unnamed senior administration and military officials who said they heard or were told the remarks during a 2018 trip to France [1] [2]. The story produced direct quoted paraphrases of what Trump allegedly said—most notably “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers” and a separate reference to Belleau Wood victims as “suckers”—but relied on anonymous sourcing and has been met with forceful denials and caveats about independent verification [3] [4] [5].
1. The core evidence: multiple anonymous senior officials with firsthand knowledge
The Atlantic’s article cited several senior White House and Pentagon officials speaking on the record only on background or anonymously, claiming firsthand knowledge of Trump’s comments on a canceled visit to the Aisne‑Marne American Cemetery in 2018 and a separate exchange about the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood; those sources provided the specific reported language—“filled with losers” about the cemetery and “suckers” about the Marines—that anchor the piece [1] [2] veterans-suckers-and-losers/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[6].
**2. Contemporaneous corroboration cited by others: staffers and former aides referenced the Atlantic report**
Follow‑up reporting in outlets ranging from Military Times and Forbes to The Hill reiterated that The Atlantic based its account on multiple senior staffers and officials with on‑the‑scene knowledge, and noted that some former aides and figures in Trump’s orbit publicly disputed the characterization while others—most significantly, former White House chief of staff John Kelly in some reports—were cited as confirming that Trump used denigrating language about veterans [2] [6] [7].
3. No audio or on‑the‑record first‑hand tape was produced; fact‑checkers flagged limits
Despite the detailed, attributed paraphrases in The Atlantic, outlets and fact‑checkers have emphasized that there was no publicly released audio or on‑camera witness; Snopes and other reviewers said they could not independently verify the remarks beyond The Atlantic’s anonymous sourcing and sought comment from Trump’s representatives, underscoring that the story’s evidentiary weight depends on the credibility and number of those unnamed officials [4].
4. Official denials and partisan responses complicate the evidentiary picture
The White House and Trump himself vehemently denied the account—calling it a “total lie” or “totally false”—and the administration offered alternative explanations for the canceled cemetery visit, such as poor weather; political allies also attacked the magazine’s credibility, framing the report as partisan [5] [2] [3]. Conversely, critics and veterans’ groups pointed to the Atlantic account as consistent with other reported instances of contempt, amplifying the story’s political fallout even as questions about sourcing remained [8] [9].
5. What the evidence does—and does not—establish
Taken together, The Atlantic presented a mosaic of insider recollections that converge on the same alleged comments and context, which is why multiple mainstream outlets treated the report as significant and newsworthy; however, because the reporting depends on anonymous senior officials rather than publicly available recordings or fully on‑the‑record eyewitnesses, independent, conclusive proof beyond those contemporaneous anonymous accounts has not been produced in the public record according to available fact‑checks and follow‑ups [1] [4] [2].
6. How to weigh the report going forward
Assessing The Atlantic’s evidence requires balancing the specificity and number of anonymous, high‑level sources it cites—factors that increase a story’s plausibility—against the absence of recorded, on‑the‑record corroboration and the existence of vigorous denials; both the article’s sourcing choices and the political stakes explain why the claim has remained contested in coverage and public debate [1] [5] [4].