Ludovic Marin/Poole/Reuters
President Joe Biden attended a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on June 8, 2024.
Paris
CNN
—
President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit a U.S. military cemetery outside Paris on Sunday that commemorates World War I soldiers killed, marking a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who skipped a visit to the cemetery during his 2018 visit.
Biden will conclude a five-day trip to France by laying a wreath at the Aisne-Marne American Military Cemetery and Memorial before returning to Washington. While he has spent much of his trip paying tribute to U.S. veterans, Sunday’s excursion was also aimed at Trump, who abandoned a trip to the memorial in 2018 and was later criticized for insulting U.S. veterans.
Trump, who was in Paris with world leaders to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, cited weather and safety concerns as the reason for canceling his visit to the cemetery. The presidential helicopter, Marine One, cannot fly when there is low cloud cover, a decision made by military and security authorities. But there appeared to be no alternative, and Trump did not express regret for not being able to visit the cemetery.
CNN later reported that Trump had called the US soldiers killed at Aisne-Marne crude and derogatory terms. A former senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed The Atlantic’s report. The magazine quoted sources as saying that Trump had refused to visit the cemetery and had called the fallen soldiers “losers” and “idiots.”
Trump strongly denied The Atlantic’s reporting, and his former chief of staff, John Kelly, later confirmed to CNN some of the anecdotes in the Atlantic article, including the visit to the cemetery and the comments about US soldiers killed in combat.
Biden has used those rhetoric repeatedly during his campaign, and last week, as he paid tribute to war heroes in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of the invasion, his reelection campaign released a new ad featuring veterans accusing Trump of being unfit for duty.
“A good commander in chief is someone who cares,” Marine Corps veteran Curtis Register says in the ad.
Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita denounced the repeatedly corroborated reports of the former president’s comments as a story that was “fake and completely debunked” and said the Biden team was “desperate.”
Biden’s team is seeking to differentiate himself from his predecessor, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on defense, and in a civil manner during a visit to France, Biden pledged unwavering support for European allies, in contrast to Trump’s more ambivalent stance.
Trump has cast doubt on future support for NATO, telling supporters this year that if re-elected he would encourage Russia to “do whatever it wants” with member states that don’t meet defence spending guidelines.
Biden also made his case Friday at Pointe du Hoc, which separates Omaha Beach from Utah Beach and where U.S. Army Rangers scaled steep cliffs to hold off German troops on Normandy landings. The president said the Rangers would want their fellow citizens today to do their part to protect themselves from dictators.
“They call on us to do our job: to defend the freedoms of our time, to defend our democracy, to confront aggression at home and abroad, and to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” he said, in the same moving setting as President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 speech on a similar theme.
“We have learned that isolationism has never been, and never will be, an acceptable response to a tyrannical government with expansionist intent,” President Reagan said in his 40th anniversary speech.Number Anniversary of D-Day.
Trump also visited Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings, but in an interview after the speech he attacked Democrats.
CNN’s Alaina Turine contributed to this report.
