Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) omitted some inconvenient facts when he tried to defend Trump's photo op at Arlington National Cemetery.Gene J. Puskar/AP
On Wednesday, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) weighed in on the Trump team’s tussle with an employee at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday honoring falling American soldiers. And by “weighed in,” we mean lied and told the vice president to “go to hell.”
At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Vance told a crowd that he didn’t think there was actually anything notable about what had transpired: “The altercation at Arlington Cemetery is the media creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one,” he said, adding, “a lot of [those families] were there with [former President Trump], they invited him to be there and to support them.”
“It is amazing to me that you have, apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery, some staff member, had a little disagreement with somebody, and the media has turned this into a national news story,” Vance continued.
The Ohio senator went further, telling Harris that she could “go to hell” for criticizing Trump’s visit to the cemetery. The choice words came despite Harris having never publicly commented on the incident, contrary to Vance’s claim that Harris “wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up” at Arlington. When asked for comment, Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, claimed that Vance had been referring to Harris’ campaign team—not the VP herself.
Also contrary to Vance’s characterization, the incident was not as simple as Vance would like you to believe. As I reported yesterday:
Trump’s staff allegedly wanted to ensure he’d be photographed honoring the troops, even though federal law “prohibits political campaign or election-related activities,” including photographers, at the cemetery, according to an Arlington National Cemetery spokesperson.
Nonetheless, Trump’s team did manage to turn the event into an opportunity for content, producing and posting a video to their TikTok account, set to somber music, that suggests the soldiers’ deaths were President Joe Biden’s fault. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had more than 6.6 million views. (The video was also posted on Trump’s Instagram page, which posted other footage from the event, too; Trump’s senior advisor Dan Scavino also shared videos on his X page.)
New details have since emerged that, if true, make the incident even more egregious.
A statement released by an Army spokesperson Thursday morning confirmed that a cemetery employee who tried to enforce a federal law that prohibits political activity at the site “was abruptly pushed aside” and that the incident had been reported to police but the employee was choosing not to press charges; The New York Times reports that the staffer was not pressing charges because they were worried about retaliation from Trump supporters.
The Times also obtained a statement from the family of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano—a Green Beret who reportedly died by suicide in 2020 after serving eight combat tours—expressing dismay that his gravestone had been included in a picture in which Trump posed grinning with a thumbs up at the gravesite of Staff Sergeant Darin Taylor Hoover, located next to Marckesano’s. The Marckesano family, the Times reported, did not grant permission for the gravestone to be photographed or filmed by the Trump campaign; the Hoover family reportedly did.
Marckesano’s sister, Michele, told the Times: “According to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit,” adding, “We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”
Cheung did not respond to a request for comment on the family’s statement, only saying: “As the Army has said, they consider this matter closed. President Trump was there to support the Gold Star families and honor the sacrifices their loved ones made. Where was Kamala Harris?”
