US Army rebukes Trump campaign for incident at Arlington National Cemetery

Breaking news this morning, the U.S. Army is rebuking the Trump campaign for inserting politics into a visit to Arlington National Cemetery and for an altercation with a cemetery employee. CNN Pentagon's Gone correspondent Oren Liebermann joins me live from the Pentagon. Oren, so what is the Army saying in this rare statement? My honor, this is a fairly remarkable statement, both, as you point out, because of the rebuke of the Trump campaign and then for standing up to the Arlington National Cemetery employee who was involved in this. The statement doesn't mention the Trump campaign or former President Donald Trump explicitly, but it's also very clear to what it's referring. Here is a part of this statement. Let me read this to you. Participants in the August 26th ceremony and subsequent section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations, and DoD policies which clearly prohibit political activities. An Arlington National Cemetery employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the armed forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with dignity and respect. In that statement, the Army basically says the visit as it was carried out in section 60, which is where fallen service members from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, was a violation of federal law. That law explicitly states memorial services and ceremonies at Army National military cemeteries will not include Partizan political activities. That's where they say the visit violated federal law. But afterwards, a member of the Trump campaign also suggested the Arlington employee with which this altercation happened was, quote, a despicable individual, and someone even suggested that she might have mental health issues. Here are the Army stood by their employee, praising her professionalism and saying it's an incredibly important and sacred job she has at Arlington National Cemetery. Once again, an incredible statement in this rebuke of the campaign and of course, standing up for the employee involved in this. Yeah. Remarkable. Rare. You don't see this very often. And or LeBron. Thank you for that. From the Pentagon. My panel is now back to digest this. Laura, I mean, as we're saying here, the Army does not usually weigh in on issues like this, but decided to do so here, say that the Trump campaign violated federal law and disputes what the Trump campaign said publicly about what happened here at this grave site. Yeah, the Trump campaign has tried to deny and say that this incident wasn't didn't happen the way that it was characterized. But whether it's Arlington National Cemetery or the Army now saying no, this is what occurred. It was a violation of federal law. And, you know, even news of a family who of a fallen soldier whose grave was right next to, the the grave that Trump took the photo at and that they were also dismayed and upset because they are an intensely private private about the loss of their soldier. Yeah. and, you know, it's a level the impact here is on these gold star families who are who. The reason that that rule exists in section 60 is to protect these families. And because of the fact that that this is a sacred and honored ground. Yeah, it protect their privacy. You mentioned that statement from one of the families of one of the the soldiers here who was buried at that site, who apparently learned that in the aftermath that this filming had taken place. They said in a statement to the New York Times and said, we fully support Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover's family and other families in their quest for answers. However, according to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules. We hope that those visiting the sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom, and that they are honored and respected accordingly. How do you think the Trump campaign is going to respond to all this? They haven't yet to this Army review, and so far they've dug in. Well, they continue to dig. I would imagine they'll continue to double down. But it was a missed opportunity off the bat when this emerged. They could have been immediately contrite. And this is such a sensitive issue. You're always, always going to be a risk when you're using, people's pain to make a political point. Yeah. And this perhaps was not the way to do it. And I think being immediately contrite maybe would have, avoided this continuous fallout. But that is not certainly characteristic. Yeah. Being contrite is not characteristic of the former president. No. I mean, could you I mean, if they came out and said we we had a different opinion, we disagreed. You know, we're sorry any anything like that things could have gotten perhaps would have been a lot better. But this is how they what they said initially the Trump campaign did. A spokesman put out a statement right in the aftermath of this episode, saying the fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason, an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony. Chris Loss, of the top adviser for the Trump campaign also called that employee, quote, despicable. The Army basically said, these is not they are not telling the truth, saying that the the employee was just trying to adhere, ensure adherence to this rules and was abruptly pushed aside. Yeah, it's amazing that that's where they went. I mean, I think of all the things we should be able to agree on is that Arlington National Cemetery should not be a site for political spectacles. And this seems to have been quite a political spectacle, including, you know, I don't know if that's roughing up or whatever, pushing somebody out of the way. I think a problem for the Trump campaign and the former president on this, too. It's part of a pattern of the way he has talked about, some veterans. I mean, come back to Senator McCain. Yeah. And that, you know, people look at this and go, he just recently got in trouble for what he talked about, Medal of Honor winners and provoked the VFW to put out a public statement, which was very unusual as well. So, you know, I think there's more to come on this. There's also a pattern in it. The official that tried to get them to stop taking photographs said that they ultimately didn't press charges because of the fact that they were worried about retaliation from Trump supporters. That is a pattern where people, even lawmakers Mitt Romney, has said that he has spoken to Republicans that didn't want to stand up to Donald Trump around January 6th because for fear that they they themselves or their family would face retaliation. So it's a part of a pattern with the Trump movement. Yeah. And meantime, this all comes as Trump is visiting Michigan and Wisconsin today trying to turn things back around in this campaign. As you can see from the election margins on your screen, very close in 2016 and 2020 is expected to be close once again. But meantime, he's doing things on social media that is taking him and his campaign off message, not focusing, as Republicans say, on the policy, but sharing a bunch of posts, including the cruelly crude posts about Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton and the like, and once again, distracting over the message they're trying to push. So I actually am in conversation with a whole host of black female Democratic leaders, and I asked them about this, the sexist and racist attacks that we have seen targeted at the vice president. And they told me that these attacks sort of just speak for themselves, right? That the vice president, she doesn't have to engage with this, that it's actually politically beneficial if she does not, and that, the more that he does this, he sort of just hurts himself and helps her. Yeah. And she has not really addressed it. We'll see if she does later today. And that of course. Very big interview.