The story of President Trump’s alleged remarks calling dead U.S. soldiers “losers” and dead Marines “suckers” may not be over.
The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who first reported Trump made the remarks based solely on anonymous sources, said he expects further confirmation of his story from other journalists and new information to come out.
“Have you gone back to these sources since Thursday?” CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter asked during an interview on Sunday. “Are some of them considering speaking publicly?”
“I don’t want to go into that too much. I would say that I’m in conversation with a large number of people, as are other reporters, as you noted at the top of the show,” Goldberg replied, adding that national security officials have expressed “horror” with the president’s reported comments. Multiple former and current White House officials, including Trump himself, have denied the report. Other news outlets, including Fox News, reported that they have corroborated parts of the story.
“Let me just say it this way. I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this, and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,” Goldberg continued.
Goldberg’s report was based on accounts from four anonymous sources, whom the outlet describes as individuals with “firsthand knowledge” of a conversation the president had with senior staff members calling fallen soldiers “losers.”
“Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead,” Goldberg reported about Trump’s canceled 2018 appearance at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France.
In addition, the report said Trump asked staff planning for a military parade to keep wounded veterans away.
Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security Department official who has endorsed Joe Biden for president, predicted during a Saturday appearance on CNN that a stream of former senior Trump administration officials will publicly speak out against Trump in the coming days.
