A former Republican pollster clashed with a former Donald Trump staffer over the GOP nominee's apparently illegal photo opportunity at Arlington National Cemetery.
The former president's campaign shared a TikTok video of him laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, where photos and video are permitted, and joining Gold Star family members at the gravesites of their loved ones in Section 60, a newer area of the cemetery where federal law prohibits campaign activity, and two campaign staffers purportedly got in a physical and verbal altercation with an Arlington staffer who tried to prevent the recording.
"Let's just accept all of the facts to be true, that he laid the marker at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, that they went there, they were invited by the other families and all of this," said Mike Dubke, who served as White House communications director under Trump. "I understand the reasoning behind doing the visit on Monday and I understand after being invited to visit the grave site, which you know, if the family invited the former president Trump to visit the grave site, I think he had every right to do that. On the photograph, I mean, it's very easy to blur out other images, logos, names, whatever the case may be. The Trump campaign should have done that."
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"The first part of the day went, I think, the way that they were hoping it would, [but] the second part of the day turned into a kerfuffle that we're now talking about three days later," Dubke added. "Should they have blanked out the names of the others? Probably"
"No one is trying to take anything away from somebody trying to pay respects to fallen soldiers at the invitation of their families," said the host Kasie Hunt
Dubke said the campaign should have handled the fallout better, because the service members buried in that section of the cemetery were recent casualties with living family members who may object to the photos and video, but former GOP pollster Sarah Longwell said the former president had always blundered in military service matters.
"Donald Trump has literally never been good at honoring America's soldiers," Longwell said. "Like, this is a guy who said that people who died for the country were suckers and losers, and like every time he goes out there and tries to sort of performatively utilize dead soldiers and people who've fallen for the country, like, he does it in the schlocky political way and so this is like par for the course with him. He has no real sense of dignity around this."
"He has no real sense of commitment to these soldiers he uses people as political props," she added, "and then behind the scenes, he criticizes their sacrifice."
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