PHOENIX — A longtime friend of the late Senator John McCain publicly condemned the actions of former President Donald Trump and his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week.
“I think John McCain would find it abhorrent that Donald Trump, who called veterans losers and suckers, would use the most hallowed ground in our country as a political stage," Wes Gullett told 12News on Thursday. Gullett, a political consultant in Phoenix, began working with McCain during his 1986 Senate race and said McCain was like an older brother to him until his death in 2018. Gullett is now a leader of the Republicans for Harris campaign in Arizona.
RELATED: Defense official: Trump campaign was warned about photos before Arlington altercation broke out
Trump used video to criticize casualties in Afghanistan
On Monday, Trump used the grounds of the cemetery as video content for a social media post he circulated online. Federal regulations bar “partisan political activities” at memorial services at Army cemeteries, and the Army said they provided Trump aides a set of rules days in advance of their visit expressly prohibiting photos of graves, an Army official told NBC News.
After the visit, Trump and his campaign co-manager posted on social media a video of the former president laying flowers at a grave and walking among headstones with a voiceover of Trump criticizing casualties in Afghanistan.
'Non-reverence' and 'abhorrent'
Gullett said Monday’s incident also “reflects a non-reverence” Trump has shown for the military.
The visit initially garnered widespread attention because there was an altercation between a Trump campaign aide and an employee at the cemetery. The Army released a statement saying a Trump aide “abruptly pushed aside” a cemetery employee who was trying to enforce rules against taking photos of the burial ground, according to NBC News.
Trump said he responded to family’s request
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign said the employee initiated the physical contact. In an interview with NBC News Thursday, Trump said he allowed photos to be taken in response to the request of a fallen service member’s family. Trump did not directly address the cemetery’s video restrictions policy regarding graves.
Gullett, a Republican Precinct Committeeman since 1988, represents the continuing pushback against the MAGA movement six years after McCain’s death: “McCain Republicans,” as they are often labeled, helped defeat Trump in Arizona in 2020.
“I don’t think Ronald Reagan or John McCain will recognize the Republican Party we’re dealing with today, which is tragic,” Gullett said.
Others critical of Trump’s views towards US dead, wounded
Others have criticized the former president for allegedly not respecting dead and wounded U.S. service members. Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly confirmed to CNN in 2023 several first-hand accounts in which Kelly alleged Trump called wounded U.S. soldiers “suckers” and resisted being seen with them publicly because Trump said it wouldn’t “look good.” Kelly recounted Trump, during a 2017 graveside memorial service, telling Kelly, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley provided a similar account of Trump not wanting to be in the presence of wounded veterans.
Trump shocked many Americans in 2015 when, as a candidate for president, he criticized McCain and said he preferred war heroes “who weren’t captured.”
Without naming Trump, McCain derided the MAGA movement in a 2017 speech as “half-baked, spurious nationalism” destined to be relegated to “the ash heap of history.”
McCain is buried at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Maryland.
After McCain’s death, Trump initially avoided issuing a proclamation to lower flags to half-staff at federal properties in McCain’s honor, bucking protocol for honoring sitting members of Congress who die.
Decision 2024
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