Following a canceled trip to a cemetery in France dedicated to fallen U.S. service members in 2018, President Trump instead picked out art pieces he wanted to take home.
Trump had several pieces of art in the U.S. ambassador’s historic Paris residence removed and loaded onto Air Force One, including a portrait, a bust, and a set of silver figurines to be brought back to the White House, according to Bloomberg.
News claims about Trump’s canceled trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery emerged last week in a report by the Atlantic that said, in part, that the president dismissed the idea of going to a ceremony because he was worried about his hair getting messed up in rainy conditions and didn’t care about the American war dead.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, whose reporting has been partially confirmed by other news outlets, relied on unnamed sources who said Trump called dead U.S. soldiers “losers,” dead Marines “suckers,” and asked staff planning for a military parade to keep wounded veterans away.
Multiple former and current White House officials, including Trump himself, have denied the report.
Referring to anonymous sources familiar with the episode, Bloomberg reported that Trump’s “art caper” at the official residence of U.S. Ambassador Jamie McCourt was met with “amusement and astonishment” and caused logistical hardship for White House and State Department staffers.
After his planned trip to the World War I cemetery was canceled, which the White House said was due to rain, he spent six hours of free time at the residence, pointing out a series of pieces he liked that he insisted return with him to Washington.
“The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People’s House,” White House spokesman Judd Deere told the outlet.
The art, worth about $750,000, was loaded aboard Air Force One while Trump visited another cemetery before returning to the U.S.
