Highlights of Trump disrespecting the US Military
NOTE: this text was not written by me and is from user u/Bobby5Spice. The only changes were minor formatting for readability. I would merely link to reddit if they had a way to highlight comments, but they do not.
The original post.
Trump highlights:
✓ Makes the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them fly at his July 4th political campaign (July 4, 2019)
✓ Demands US military chiefs stand next to him at 4th of July parade (reported July 2, 2019)
✓ Uses his D-Day interview at cemetery commemorating fallen US soldiers to attack a Vietnam veteran (June 6, 2019)
✓ Starts his D-Day commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen (Bette Midler, of all people) (reported on June 4th, 2019)
✓ Made 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported on June 4th, 2019)
✓ Turns away US military from his Memorial Day speech because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain (May 27, 2019)
✓ Orders the USS John McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019). The ship’s name was subsequently covered. (May 27, 2019)
✓ Pardons war criminals (May, 2019)
✓ Purges 200,000 veterans healthcare applications (due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment process and enrollment system) (reported on May 13, 2019)
✓ Deports spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless (April 16, 2019)
✓ Complains a deceased war hero didn’t thank him for his funeral (March 20, 2019)
✓ Diverts military housing funds to pay for border wall (Feb 15, 2019)
✓ refuses to sign his party’s funding bill, which shuts down the government, and forces a branch of the military to go without pay (but his appointees got a $10,000 pay raise). This branch of military is forced to work without pay, otherwise they are AWOL (Dec 22, 2018 – Jan 25, 2019)
✓ doesn’t pay the Coast Guard, forcing service members to rely on food pantries (Jan 23, 2019)
✓ bans service members from serving based on gender identity (Jan 22, 2019)
✓ denies female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published Jan 18, 2019)
✓ tries to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019)
✓ when a man was caught swindling veterans pensions for high-interest “cash advances,” Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1. As a reminder, the Trump administration’s goal was to dismantle the CFPB, installing Mick Mulvaney as the director, who publicly stated the bureau should be disbanded. (Jan 26, 2019)
✓ calls a retired general a ‘dog’ with a ‘big, dumb mouth’ (Jan 1, 2019)
✓ increases privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)
✓ finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (Dec 26, 2018)
✓ reveals covert Seal Team 5 deployment, including names and faces, on Twitter during visit to Iraq (Dec 26, 2018)
✓ lies to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise. He didn’t give them a 10% raise (Dec 26, 2018)
✓ fires service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays (Dec 19, 2018-present)
✓ gets three Mar-a-Lago guests to run the VA (unknown start - present, made well-known in 2018)
✓ calls troops on Thanksgiving and tells them he’s most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)
✓ urges Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)
✓ cancels Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to the rain (Nov 12, 2018)
✓ doesn’t visit US cemetery marking the end of WWI due to the rain (but other world leaders go anyway) (Nov 10, 2018)
✓ stops using troops as a political prop immediately after the election. However, troops remain in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018)
✓ uses troops as a political prop and sends troops on a phantom mission to the border and makes them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018)
✓ doesn’t pay veterans’ VA benefits (made public Oct 2018)
✓ doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)
✓ deports active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018)
✓ forgets a fallen soldier’s name (below) during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacks her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)
✓ sends commandos into an ambush due to a lack of intel, and sends contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. (Trump approved the mission because Bannon told him Obama didn’t have the guts to do it) (Oct 4, 2017)
✓ blocks a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)
✓ discharges active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)
✓ deports veterans (2017-present)
✓ says he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)
✓ says vets get PTSD because they aren’t strong (Oct 3, 2016) (note: yes, he said it’s ‘because they aren’t strong.’ He didn’t say it’s ‘because they’re weak.’ This distinction is important because of Snopes)
✓ accepts a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and says: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)
✓ attacks Gold Star families (2016-present. Myeshia Johnson–gold star widow, Khan family–gold star parents, etc)
✓ sends funds raised from a January 2016 veterans benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation instead of veterans charities (the foundation has since been ordered shut because of fraud) (Jan, 2016)
✓ says he doesn’t consider POWs heroes because they were caught (July 18, 2015)
✓ says having unprotected sex was like Vietnam (1998)
✓ for a decade, sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?” - 1991
✓ dodges the draft 5 times