‘How Low Can One Man Go’: Trump Stood Over 400,000 Dead American Soldiers and Made It a Joke About Himself; Then Obama Showed Up Online and Destroyed Him Without Saying a Single Word
President Donald Trump, often criticized in military circles as dodging the draft five times during the Vietnam War, is facing an intense backlash after delivering a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, making it all about himself after joking in the middle of it that there weren’t “too many” fallen service members named “Donald.”
But what really set the internet off was the contrasting and respectful message from Trump’s bitter political rival, former President Barack Obama, who posted about the country’s war dead.
Obama, still popular and admired for his calm, reassuring demeanor, posted a message on Instagram on Monday, May 25, honoring fallen service members.
“On Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives for this country that we love,” he began.
“It is a debt we can never fully repay, but we must never stop trying. I’ll always be grateful to our fallen heroes and their families, whose sacrifice reminds us of what it means to live for something greater than ourselves,” Obama respectfully wrote.
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By contrast, Trump went to Arlington also on Memorial Day to deliver what should have been a solemn remembrance of the thousands of heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and somehow he managed to go off script, as usual, for just a few seconds, but it was enough to take the spotlight off fallen military personnel and make it all about himself.
“Four hundred thousand souls rest on these grounds, these beautiful grounds, in the sacred soil which is first consecrated in the hours of America’s greatest division to be an eternal symbol, national unity,” Trump said.
“It cannot be by chance alone that the very first service member laid to rest here in this place of supreme sacrifice was a Union soldier by the name of Private Chris Mann,” he continued before beginning to ramble about names.
“Private William Henry Christman of Pennsylvania who died is 19 years old, but he was a great young man, they say,” the president extolled.
As he continued, though, Trump couldn’t help himself and seemed to get a kick out of mentioning his own name, giggling when he said “Donalds” despite the somberness of the occasion and quipping about it.
“Beside him are more than 18,000 young men named William, over 20,000 named John, over 13,000 named James, joined over time by Isaac, Elijah, Earles, Hanks, Helens, Juans, Margarets, Marios, Donalds, not too many, ha ha, and others whose names tell the true story of American greatness and greatness it is,” Trump remarked.
Social media exploded in anger and surprise over Trump giggling and quipping during such a serious memorial service.
“400,000 dead Americans at Arlington. F-ckface somehow heard: ‘This would be a good moment to joke about how few dead soldiers were named Donald.’ This utterly vile, self-obsessed asshole turns a sombre event into a f-cking stand-up routine about himself,” X user Canada Hates Trump proclaimed.
This poster pointed out, “He has absolutely zero empathy and can only mouth empathic words on a teleprompter written for him. Then… when he ad libs.. there it is…Donald the sociopath!”
X user Kellie Allen is furious. “How rude and crude and low can one man go? He can’t say half the words written for him, then they don’t make sense. He saying a Bible verse he re-wrote? Why name someone from 250 years ago, when laughs at 13 men killed in Iran? What a dumb person he is.
And still another has never forgotten what Trump said about service members.
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“He still considers them suckers and losers.”
The poster referencing remarks there that Trump is said to have made during his first term in office in 2018 during a trip to France when he canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris.
The Atlantic reported that Trump first blamed the rain then said the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither excuse was true.
The outlet confirmed with four people that were there that Trump canceled the visit because he was worried about the rain messing up his hair and then asked why he should go to a cemetery that is “filled with losers.”
Eighteen hundred Marines were killed trying to clear out German forces during the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I.
And in a separate conversation during the same trip to France, Trump called the dead marines “suckers” for losing their lives at Belleau Wood, a French village near the cemetery.
The American Battle Monuments Commission says there are “2,289 war dead, most of whom fought in the vicinity and in the Marne Valley in the summer of 1918” in Aisne-Marne American Cemetery.