Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is leaning heavily into anonymously sourced allegations that President Trump called soldiers who died in battle “losers” and “suckers,” enlisting veterans Tammy Duckworth and Conor Lamb and gold star father Khizr Khan to criticize Trump and amplify the report.
“Last night and today, countless veterans and military families are in pain and asking, ‘What is in this presidency for us?'” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said Friday.
The Democratic presidential nominee released a statement on the allegations a few hours after they became public in the Atlantic on Thursday.
“If the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true, then they are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States,” Biden said. “Duty, honor, country — those are the values that drive our service members. Those are the values that have formed the core of America’s defense for centuries. And if I have the honor of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.”
On Friday, the Biden campaign held a press call “in reaction to the appalling revelations about Donald Trump and veterans” with Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee; Khizr Khan, the father of an Army captain who was killed in 2004; and Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb, a Marine veteran.
“I am not shocked, but I am appalled,” Duckworth said. “I’ll take my wheelchair and titanium legs over Donald Trump’s supposed bone spurs every day.”
Khan, who famously railed against Trump in a 2016 Democratic convention speech, said that Trump is “incapable of understanding service, valor, and courage. His soul cannot conceive of integrity and honor.”
“According to Trump, the winners are those who put themselves above all, and the losers are those who don’t,” Khan added. “His soul is that of a coward.”
The Atlantic‘s story from editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said that when Trump had to cancel a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, he told senior staff members, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” and called the 1,800 Marines buried there who were killed in World War I’s Battle of Belleau Wood “suckers.”
The account was based on “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day,” which on Friday Goldberg said that, despite pushing them to go on the record, he decided to proceed without naming them due to the fact that there were multiple sources. “They don’t want to be inundated with angry tweets and all the rest,” he told CNN.
During the press call, Lamb was asked about the story’s use of anonymous sources. He said that it is important to find a way to “find a way to speak truth to power” and added that anonymous sourcing has saved lives, adding that the details in the story are consistent with what Trump has said publicly.
