On Sunday, Donald Trump demanded that President Joe Biden take down an attack ad with a series of quotes in which he mocks dead soldiers. What spurred this response were Biden’s comments during his visit to France and the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, a burial ground Trump ignored in 2018 and reportedly later described as “filled with losers.” Trump denied saying this, as well as allegedly calling some 1,800 Marines “suckers” for being killed.
At a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, one of the first since he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records recently, Trump continued his dismissal of the quotes. “He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers, the dead soldiers from World War II,’” Trump said, referring to Biden. Moreover, he said that Biden “made up” the incident and that “they still took out an ad using it—these are sick people.”
Trump elaborated further about what he claimed are fabrications, noting that “unless you’re a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that anyway?” Later, on his social media platform, Truth Social, he called the matter “another Democratic hit job” and that only “a sicko with an axe to grind would suggest that anyone would make such a statement.”
Of course, many of his opponents would say that Trump fits the bill and refer to even more insulting and demeaning comments.
Trump continues to maintain a lead over Biden in the battleground states, although the margin in some instances decreased after the verdict. Even so, issues such as inflation, immigration, and the war between Israel and Hamas, to say nothing of Hunter Biden’s trial, cause more concern from the voters, particularly those on the right.
Meanwhile, the world awaits the Trump sentencing for falsifying business records and his possible appeal of the verdict, although several experts doubt whether the verdict will be reversed. The Appellate Division, First Department, has rarely reversed criminal convictions, and according to one report, only about 4 to 6 percent of cases are reversed.
During the trial, Trump’s lawyer called for a mistrial after Stormy Daniels’s testimony and an examination by the prosecutor in which she said she felt intimidated and the sex encounter was not consensual may be a key source in the appeal. All of this remains in the arena of conjecture, however, and only time will reveal the outcome.