Biden brought up an insult Trump allegedly made about American war dead during his time as commander in chief.
According to a story in the Atlantic, Trump in 2018 canceled a visit to an American World War I cemetery in France, asking senior staffers ahead of the scheduled visit, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the trip, “Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood [during World War I] as ‘suckers’ for getting killed,” according to the story, which cited “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.”
During the debate, Biden recalled his recent trip to France for the anniversary of D-Day and referred to his late son, Beau Biden. Beau, a veteran, died of glioblastoma — a condition the president has said could have come from the inhalation of toxic fumes from burn pits during his military service.
“I went to the … World War I cemetery where he refused to go to. He was standing with his four-star general. And he told ’em, he said, ‘I don’t want to go in there because they’re a bunch of losers and suckers.’ My son was not a loser. He’s not a sucker. You’re a sucker. You’re the loser,” Biden said.
Trump has repeatedly denied the account, saying during the debate that it was “made up” and that “there’s nobody that’s taken better care of our soldiers than I have.”
In 2023, Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly issued a statement to CNN saying that Trump “rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
