- President
Donald Trump did not want injured veterans to be present at a military parade because he believed it would make spectators uneasy, sources said in a report published Thursday in The Atlantic. - "Nobody wants to see that," Trump reportedly said.
- Trump has repeatedly demanded military parades throughout his tenure in office, a move national security experts have said mirrors the actions of authoritarian regimes like North Korea's.
- The White House issued several statements disputing The Atlantic's story on Thursday, calling it a "disgrace" and "patently false."
President Donald Trump did not want injured veterans to be present at a military parade because he believed it would make spectators uneasy, The Atlantic reported Thursday.
"Nobody wants to see that," Trump said during a White House meeting ahead of a planned military parade in 2018, sources told The Atlantic's editor in chief. The president was widely reported to have wanted to hold a massive military parade in Washington, DC, that year to coincide with Veterans Day weekend and the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Cost estimates for such a parade reached $92 million, according to multiple reports, and the parade was eventually delayed.
On July 4, 2019, Trump held a "Salute to America" parade in the nation's capital. The display infuriated local officials and Democratic lawmakers who said it was a costly and unnecessary display of American military might.
"Our July 4th Salute to America at the Lincoln Memorial is looking to be really big," Trump said on Twitter. "It will be the show of a lifetime!"
"The cost of our great Salute to America tomorrow will be very little compared to what it is worth," the president added, ahead of the parade.
The president has repeatedly demanded military parades throughout his tenure at the White House, in a move that national security experts say mirrors the actions of authoritarian regimes like North Korea's.
Laurence Tribe, a constitutional-law professor who is frequently critical of the president, wrote of the July 4 parade, "The resemblance to days before Tiananmen Square is chilling."
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a former Marine Corps officer who is also an outspoken Trump critic, mocked the president's demands for the military parade.
"Trump's military parade is such a great idea that it's hard to imagine it coming from anyone who better understands the truths about what our troops want than a man who took five deferments to avoid serving himself," Moulton tweeted at the time.
The president frequently touts his support for US veterans and their families and has falsely taken credit more than 150 times for the passage of the Veterans Choice Act of 2014. Trump was not president at the time, and his predecessor, Barack Obama, signed the bill into law.
The White House issued several statements disputing The Atlantic's story — which included other claims detailing inflammatory remarks by Trump about US troops — on Thursday.
"This report is patently false," the White House representative Alyssa Farah said. "President Trump holds the military in the highest regard. He's demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms, and supporting military spouses. These nameless anecdotes have no basis in fact and are offensive fiction."
Judd Deere, another White House representative, also put out a statement sharply denying the report's claims, writing on Twitter: "Not a soul brave enough to put their name on any of these accusations. That's because they are false. Just another anonymously sourced story meant to tear down a Commander-in-Chief who loves our military and has delivered on the promises he's made. What a disgrace!"