Trump denies exploiting visit to US soldiers’ graves: ‘I don’t need publicity’
Donald Trump has denied exploiting a controversial visit to soldiers’ graves at Arlington national cemetery for political ends by saying he does not need the publicity.
Related: Democrats seize on Trump cemetery photo op ‘disgrace’ as election issue
The US army publicly rebuked Trump campaign officials for turning a ceremony on Monday to mark the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate. The army accused two campaign workers of pushing aside an official at the cemetery who told them that it was not permitted to take photographs at the graves of recently deceased soldiers.
Trump was pictured giving a thumbs up with family members amid the graves of 13 US servicemen and women killed in a suicide bombing as the US hurriedly withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021.
Trump told a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that he only posed at the invitation of the families – even though they did not have the authority to approve what amounted to campaign photos.
“I don’t need publicity. I get a lot of publicity. I would like to get a lot less publicity … I would hire a public relations agent to get less publicity,” he said.
“Joe Biden killed those young people because he was incompetent. And then they tell me that I used their graves for public relations services, and I didn’t.”
Hours before the rally, Trump sent supporters a fundraising email promising “an EARTH-SHATTERING announcement that blows this race wide open”.
“It’ll strike FEAR into the hearts of our DEEP STATE ENEMIES. It’ll force the Fake News Media to kick their propaganda machine into OVERDRIVE. It’ll send Comrade Kamala begging for massive checks from the liberal billionaire class,” he promised.
No such message was immediately discernible as the former president hit many of his stock themes, from immigration and crime to questioning whether Kamala Harris would be able to “stand up to China and North Korea” as president.
Trump called for the death penalty for drug dealers and promised to “end the era of inflation and misery”, to “keep men out of women’s sports” and to “restore peace through strength”, while veering off into observations about the “war on Christmas”.
Once again the former president attacked foreign governments for allegedly emptying their prisons and shipping criminals to the US illegally. But he added a new twist by saying that if he was in charge of the same countries he would be more effective than the governments he was criticising at pursuing such a policy.
“If I was running one of those countries, I’d be doing better than them at getting them (imprisoned criminals) out,” he said.
Trump yet again failed to offer evidence for his oft-repeated claim. But he did make reference to the release of video of Venezuelan gangs operating in Aurora, Colorado, including shootouts. Trump has previously alleged that the Venezuelan government is one of those sending known criminals across the Mexican border.
Speaking for more than 90 minutes, Trump defended himself from accusations that he rambles nonsensically at his rallies by claiming that he is weaving together complex thoughts.
“You know, I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen’,” he said.
“But the fake news, you know what they say, ‘He rambled’. It’s not rambling.”
At the end of the rally, Trump appealed for supporters to get out and vote in order to produce a win so large that it cannot be stolen, as he alleges happened in 2020.
“Get the hell out to vote,” he said. “We want a landslide that is too big to rig.”
