New Details Shed True Horror of Trump’s Fight at Arlington Cemetery

It turns out the fight between Donald Trump’s campaign staff and an Arlington National Cemetery official Monday was worse than we thought. The assaulted cemetery employee was a woman, and she didn’t want to press charges because she was afraid of retaliation from Trump supporters.

The New York Times reports that the woman filed an incident report with the military, but opted not to proceed further with law enforcement authorities at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia, which has jurisdiction over the cemetery. Trump and his campaign have been scrambling to explain away the physical altercation, posting a message of thanks from a military family, blaming the cemetery official, and even accusing her of having a “mental health episode.”

Taking photographs or video at a military cemetery for political purposes is prohibited under federal law, particularly in Arlington National Cemetery’s Section 60, where recent military casualties are buried. After participating in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns on the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan, Trump visited Section 60 with family members of Marines killed in the attack—and with cameras. The cemetery official tried to stop Trump’s campaign staffers from filming and taking photos, leading to them pushing the official and calling her names.

It turns out that the official’s concern was warranted, after Trump released photos and a video of his visit to Section 60, which was supposed to be private and closed to the press. The family of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, whose gravesite was shown in those photos, issued a statement saying that they did not give permission for the grave to be filmed or used by the Trump campaign.

“[A]ccording 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 to Staff Sergeant Hoover’s gravesite in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother’s grave,” said Marckesano’s sister Michele in the statement. 

“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,” she added.

One politician who was with Trump at the cemetery on Monday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, apologized on X (formerly Twitter) for using photos from the section in a campaign email.

“This was not a campaign event and was never intended to be used by the campaign,” Cox wrote. “It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent. My campaign will be sending out an apology.”

The Trump campaign, however, has not. Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance accused the media of blowing it out of proportion.

“Apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery, some staff member had a little disagreement with somebody,” Vance said. “And they have turned — the media has turned this into a national news story.”

The more the Trump campaign refuses to acknowledge even the appearance of disrespect at a military cemetery, as well as the possible violation of federal law, the more likely the incident won’t go away, especially given Trump’s dismal reputation with military veterans. 

Donald Trump’s polling in Sun Belt states should have the former president shaking in his boots, according to one political analyst.

Fox News released polling Wednesday from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, which found that Kamala Harris had significantly tightened the gap across the key states. Harris is now leading Trump by one point in Arizona, and two points in Georgia and Nevada. Trump has maintained a one-point lead in North Carolina, where the race is now considered to be a toss-up.

The polling indicates that Harris has expanded the Democratic voting map since entering the race, putting the Sun Belt states back in play for potential Democratic victories. President Joe Biden previously trailed Trump in each of these states.

During an appearance on CNN Wednesday night, political analyst Astead Herndon said that the Trump team ought to be scared by these numbers.

“This should be an alarming fact for the Trump campaign, and I think the trend line has been so consistent, if they are not alarmed there’s probably something wrong there,” Herndon said.

“Because Donald Trump has campaigned the last month—has been flailing, has not found a consistent attack against Harris, has not found a way to break through a news cycle, and has spent his time bringing [in] RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, people who don’t expand his tent to the voters he’s bleeding by this moment,” Herndon said, noting that Trump had failed to grow his vote share, in comparison to Harris.

Herndon noted that the poll results showed the impact of the massive small dollar donations Harris has received since joining the race, which allow her to defend her blue territories while also expanding into regions such as the Sun Belt states. With Biden as the candidate, that region might’ve been a lost cause.

“It’s Donald Trump now that is under both the political and financial pressure—again, most of which is of his own making—to be able not to have the ground game that he should at this point,” Herndon said.

But if Team Trump is panicking, they’re dealing with it their usual way: denial.

The Trump campaign promptly issued their own corrections for the Fox News polls, claiming the news organization has an “awful track record” when it comes to taking accurate polls.

“It’s that time of year again: Fox is releasing atrocious polling,” the statement said.

The campaign published their own “unskewed” results, which had been adjusted based on the differences between Fox’s projected margins in those states in 2020, and their final margins after Election Day. According to the Trump campaign’s math, Trump is miraculously ahead in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina.

The Trump campaign has repeatedly disseminated “unskewed” polls adjusted based on the difference between election results and recalled votes of respondents, or how they claim to have voted four years ago—a metric that is widely considered to be unreliable.

Earlier this month, the Trump campaign attempted to do the same thing to warp New York Times/Siena polling from the Sun Belt states that found Harris was leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50 percent to 45 percent. The poll also found that Harris had passed Trump in North Carolina, leading him 49 percent to 47 percent, and that she had significantly narrowed the former president’s lead in Georgia and Nevada.

With Harris’s newfound edge, it seems that Trump should spend less time cooking the books, and more time getting his ground game together.

Ohio Senator J.D. Vance doesn’t seem to know what the other half of his ticket is up to.

Speaking before a crowd in the battleground state of Wisconsin for a fourth time Wednesday night, the Republican vice presidential pick attempted, once again, to brush off Donald Trump’s Arlington National Cemetery debacle. According to Vance, Trump was wrongly booted from the military burial ground, since it wasn’t as if he was filming a “TV commercial at a gravesite.”

Except that’s exactly what Trump was doing.

“You’re acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite,” Vance said to “the media.” “He was there providing emotional support to a lot of brave Americans who lost loved ones they never should have lost, and there happened to be a camera there, and someone gave them permission to have that camera there.”

Trump utilized the footage for a campaign video where he can be seen laying flowers down at a grave and taking photos with people while giving a thumbs-up to the camera.

Trump was caught in the act on Tuesday while filming the stunt in Section 60 of the cemetery, where recent military casualties are buried. Campaign staffers reportedly launched into a verbal and physical fight with cemetery officials, who had asked the campaign to stop videotaping. Federal law prohibits politically related activities in the cemetery, including taking photos and videos in support of a political campaign. And just because the families there gave permission doesn’t change that.

The Arlington Cemetery official that confronted the campaign filed a report over the felonious behavior but declined to press charges, reportedly fearing possible retaliation from Trump’s rabid supporters, according to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman.

Now that Kamala Harris has agreed to sit down for her first interview since President Biden dropped out of the race in July, Republicans are suddenly claiming she’s not doing it right.

Harris is sitting down for a joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, that will air at 9 p.m. Thursday on CNN. Republicans are trying to use the joint interview to claim that Harris is running scared and can’t talk to the press on her own.

“Her handlers don’t even trust her to survive a softball CNN interview, so Coach Walz is going to chaperone,” said Jesse Watters on Fox News.

“They know Kamala Harris can’t get through an interview all by herself,” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders similarly told Fox & Friends on Wednesday. “It’s clear that her own team and her own party thinks she needs a babysitter.”

“Tim is there to help prop her up and if it gets awkward or she starts giggling or looking … crazy, then he’s gonna interrupt and take over. And then they’re gonna go back and stop the tape and retape that question to make sure she looks fantastic,” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, best known for murdering her puppy, parroted on Newsmax.

There’s just one very giant problem with their argument: Joint interviews are hardly out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s customary for the presidential and vice presidential nominees to be interviewed together immediately following the convention. Even Trump did it himself.

Though it is notable that Harris has not yet taken an interview, saying Walz is “chaperoning” her or “babysitting” her is weird and misogynistic. After watching Harris at the Democratic National Convention, claiming that she is incapable of sitting down for an interview without a man by her side doesn’t make sense. The line of attack seems like a holdover from Republicans’ attacks on Joe Biden. But on Harris, it just doesn’t play.

In his new book, Donald Trump threatens billionaire and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with prison.

Save America, set to be published next week, includes a photograph of Zuckerberg and Trump at the White House. Underneath the photo, Trump wrote that Zuckerberg “would come to the Oval Office to see me” and “bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting install shameful Lock Boxes in a true PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT.”

Trump went on to pin some of his election conspiracies on Zuckerberg, and gave him a serious warning.

“He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me. We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump (or perhaps his ghostwriter) wrote.

It’s not the first time Trump has threatened the Meta mogul with prison. In July, he called out “ZUCKERBUCKS,” saying a Trump administration would “pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time.”

Zuckerburg responded by sucking up to Trump, calling him “badass” for raising his fist following the assassination attempt against him at a Pennsylvania rally. And earlier this week, Zuckerburg wrote to Congress expressing regrets over “demoting” ​​the 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, waiting for fact-checkers to review it, drawing a gleeful response from Trump on Truth Social.

“Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY (& much more!). IN OTHER WORDS, THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED,” Trump posted on Tuesday.

Needless to say, imprisoning the owner of a social media platform because he’s not doing what you want is a clear First Amendment violation. Trump still angrily insists that the 2020 election was rigged against him, claiming that massive voter fraud coupled with collaboration between the news media and social media fixed the results. And he won’t commit to accepting a 2024 election outcome in which he loses, as his cronies make moves to sabotage November’s election in Republicans’ favor, taking over key election posts in battleground states. Democrats will have to be vigilant as Election Day nears, perhaps looking at Georgia as an example, where even leading Republicans are looking to ensure a fair process.

J.D. Vance failed desperately Wednesday to spin a story about two of Donald Trump’s staffers allegedly pushing an employee at Arlington National Cemetery—and is being absolutely roasted for it.

During his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, the former U.S. Marine tried to downplay allegations that members of Trump’s team had verbally and physically assaulted a cemetery staff member on Monday.

After a wreath-laying ceremony for those killed three years ago at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan (Vance mistakenly called it Abbey Road), Trump’s team reportedly wanted to take pictures in Section 60, where recent U.S. casualties are laid to rest. Photography is strictly prohibited in that area. When they were met with resistance, campaign staff pushed their way in, according to NPR.

The incident has sparked outrage, but Vance had a different group to blame for the firestorm: the press.

“Well, I-I think first of all, the altercation at Arlington Cemetery is the media creating a story where I really don’t think there is one,” Vance said, claiming that there was “verifiable evidence” that the campaign was permitted to have a photographer with them.

Vance insisted it was all OK because Trump had been invited by the family of a veteran, notably leaving out the part where his team may have potentially violated federal law by bringing a photographer. Video footage from Trump’s time in Section 60 was published to his TikTok Tuesday, overlaid with thoughtful music and audio of Trump blatantly lying about the number of U.S. casualties during his term.

Vance’s move to blame the press is hardly surprising considering he can’t stop denigrating them at practically every single appearance—the Ohio senator openly grinned while a CNN reporter was booed at his rally Wednesday.

It is, however, a notable shift from the Trump team’s other egregious excuse. Trump’s communication director Steven Cheung had claimed that the incident was the fault of the ANC staff member who was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode,” and denied there was an altercation “as described.”

Later on stage, Vance brought the incident up yet again, in service of one of his deflated one-liners.

“Now, yeah, I mean i-it-it is amazing to me, that you have apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery, some staff member, had a little disagreement with somebody, and they have turned—the media has turned this into a national news story,” Vance said.

“You know what I think our veterans care a lot more about? That Kamala Harris’s V.P. nominee lied about his military service,” Vance quipped, trotting out his same tired “stolen valor” attack against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Online, Vance was slammed for his comments, which seemed to incidentally confirm that an “altercation” had in fact taken place, while laughably attempting to downplay it at the same time.

Even when Ohio Senator J.D. Vance thinks he’s winning, he’s losing.

During a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, the Republican vice presidential pick took a moment to pat himself on the back for his ability to speak off the cuff.

“Ma’am, I don’t need a teleprompter, I’ve actually got thoughts in my head, unlike Kamala Harris,” Vance told the crowd.

But the high didn’t last long. Moments later, Vance appeared to need a scripted reminder when he misremembered the name of Abbey Gate, the location of a horrific suicide bombing in 2021, for the location of The Beatles’ London recording studio. Monday marked the three-year anniversary of the terrorist attack just outside of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan, which killed 170 Afghans and 13 American service members.

The unfortunate flub was wrapped into an answer for a genuine scandal plaguing the Trump campaign, which was caught Tuesday violating federal law as staff members filmed Donald Trump laying a wreath in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where recent military casualties are buried. Campaign staffers then launched into a verbal and physical fight with cemetery officials, who reportedly asked the campaign to stop videos. Federal law prohibits politically related activities in the cemetery, including taking photos and videos in support of a political campaign.

“The altercation at Arlington Cemetery is the media creating a story where I don’t really think there is one,” Vance told the crowd. “There is verifiable evidence that the campaign was allowed to have a photographer there. They were invited to have a photographer there. There is verifiable evidence that the families of these poor people who had their loved ones die three years ago at Abbey Road, excuse me, Abby Gate, those 13 Americans, a lot of them were there with the president.”

“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. “You know what I think our veterans care more about? That Kamala Harris’s V.P. lied about his military service.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz served as an enlisted soldier in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, ultimately attaining the rank of command sergeant major. He enlisted in the Nebraska National Guard at the age of 17 and transferred to the Minnesota National Guard 15 years later in 1996. As part of the job, he responded to natural disasters, served with the European Security Force to support the war in Afghanistan, and was stationed around Europe to train with NATO militaries. He received several Army medals and retired as a master sergeant shortly before running for Congress in 2006. Walz has repeatedly said he left the military in order to run for office, not out of cowardice as Vance has suggested.

Vance’s boss, meanwhile, received a conveniently timed bone spur diagnosis that helped him skirt the Vietnam War draft in 1968. He’s also managed to recently upset veterans with his anti-military rhetoric, including for claiming that the Presidential Medal of Freedom he awarded to one of his billionaire donors was “much better” than the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor.

Elon Musk is making a serious dive into politics, hiring a longtime Republican political adviser.

Chris Young, who has worked as a field organizer for former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the field director for the Republican National Committee, and most recently, a political official at a pharmaceutical trade association, will be helping with Musk’s political initiatives, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing three anonymous sources.

Part of Young’s job will be to help Musk with the pro-Trump America super PAC he founded. Young, who has experience leading Republicans’ voter registration efforts, is also expected to help with field organizing.

The hire is a big step for the billionaire and world’s richest person, whose political involvement has been limited and flaky in the past. Republicans have lamented Musk backing out of grand promises and spending pledges, seeing him as a potential meal ticket and inspiration that doesn’t follow through.

For example, The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Musk planned to donate $45 million per month to the America PAC in support of Donald Trump, raising the hopes of many in the GOP. But the tech mogul later denied that report, saying he’d actually be giving at “at a much lower level.” Musk has engaged in different ways, though, secretly lobbying Trump along with Tucker Carlson to choose J.D. Vance as his running mate, and allowing misinformation to run rife on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), that benefits Trump.

Musk’s super PAC has also been collecting voters’ personal information under the guise of inviting them to register to vote, drawing the ire of state governments and putting the PAC under investigation. And although it’s not $45 million, the PAC has begun spending money, $5.8 million as of two weeks ago, to help Trump’s election efforts. X has been pushing Trump’s advertisements on the social media platform, coinciding with Trump’s buggy interview with Musk on the website.

The new hire suggests that Musk will be making more moves in politics, possibly getting his super PAC involved in political contests besides the presidency, and maybe taking advantage of Young’s field experience and trying to push Trump on a more local level. Either way, a billionaire engaging more in politics and spending a lot of money does not bode well for our democracy, particularly when it’s on behalf of a convicted felon who repeatedly attacks the electoral process.

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed a company run by the daughter of Justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush-money case, over faulty allegations of political bias.

Loren Merchan, the president of Authentic Campaigns, a political consulting group that has worked with Democrats, became a focal point of Trump’s attacks against New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. The justice is expected to dole out the former president’s sentence for his hush-money trial on September 18.

In a letter sent Wednesday, the House Judiciary demanded that Authentic Campaigns provide any evidence regarding whether Loren Merchan’s company worked for Trump’s “political adversaries,” and whether she might’ve financially benefited from Trump’s trial and subsequent conviction.

House Republicans have been attempting to get their hands on documents from Authentic Campaigns for the past month, which they hope will prove Trump’s claims that Merchan’s company worked with Trump’s enemies, and therefore her father could be dismissed from the case for bias.

Mike Nellis, the founder of Authentic Campaigns, publicly shared his company’s response to Republicans’ first request for information earlier this month, criticizing the committee for wrongly “villainizing” his colleague.

“Authentic had no role, involvement, or influence whatsoever in those judicial proceedings,” Nellis wrote, claiming that his company had no contracts with Biden for President, Harris for President, or the Democratic National Committee since January 1, 2023.

Authentic Campaigns’ list of clients includes both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s 2020 presidential campaigns, according to its website. In 2019, Harris’s campaign doled out $7.5 million to the firm for digital advertising and creative consulting, and more than $2.1 million in 2020, per CNN. Authentic has also touted Representative Adam Schiff as one of its biggest clients.

Nellis called Trump’s claims that Loren Merchan had raised tens of millions off of Trump’s trial “unequivocally false.” He also lambasted the committee for “using valuable time and taxpayer dollars to perpetuate a false right-wing conspiracy theory,” calling it a “disgraceful misuse of power.”

What started as a long-shot bid to oust Justice Merchan during Trump’s trial has become a quest by his staunchest defenders, such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, to see his conviction vacated. Trump claimed that Merchan was “totally compromised” because of his daughter’s work for Democrats, and escalated his rhetoric by naming her directly.

Trump’s personal attacks against Merchan’s daughter led to a political firestorm, causing crazed MAGA fanatics to harass and even send death threats to Loren and her colleagues, according to Nellis.

After Merchan placed a gag order on Trump, prohibiting him from making rampant, baseless accusations against the judge, courtroom staff, and family members, Fox News took up the task of claiming Loren’s work was grounds for her father’s dismissal from Trump’s trial.

Earlier this month, Trump’s team had once again requested to delay Trump’s sentencing, suggesting it would mitigate the “appearances of impropriety” created by Loren Merchan’s prior work for Harris, and Nellis’s donations to the Harris-Walz campaign.

Disinformation is already sinking its heavy hand into the 2024 election.

Several MAGA influencers with sizable followings have been revealed to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. One account, @Luna_2K24, accrued nearly 30,000 followers by posting suggestive selfies, including one of a woman in a white bikini captioned “Would You Support Trump Being The President forever?”

But despite garnering the attention of some of the far right’s biggest bulldogs, including MAGA lobbyist Marty Irby, Luna isn’t real. Instead, the woman photographed is German fashion influencer Debbie Nederlof, who told CNN that she was shocked to find that her image was pushing pro-Trump propaganda.

“To be honest, ‘what the f**k?’ was my reaction. That was my reaction, because I have nothing to do with the United States. With Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I—from a small place in Germany—care about U.S. politics?” Nederlof told CNN.

The X account, @Luna_2K24, was deleted by the time of publication.

At least 17 other European women—from the Netherlands to Russia—have had images of their faces and bodies stolen and artificially altered for use as digital assets to push pro-Trump messaging online, according to a CNN investigation in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience that assessed 56 MAGA accounts.

Many of the accounts reshare each others’ content with blatantly Trumpian hashtags, including #MAGAPatriots, #MAGA2024, and #IFBAP (I Follow Back All Patriots). The images they share feature beautiful young women with artificially altered clothing in order to make otherwise unbranded clothing sport Trump slogans. Some of the accounts’ captions also feature English language errors, which CNN reported could be indicative of “foreign interference.”

Trump himself has also been caught elevating fake images for the benefit of his campaign. Earlier this month, Trump posted a fabricated image of notoriously litigious pop star Taylor Swift clad in red, white, and blue, posing like Uncle Sam before an American flag emblazoned with the text: “Taylor wants YOU to vote for Donald Trump.”

“I accept!” Trump captioned the image.

Trump has also shared A.I.-generated content of himself and X owner Elon Musk dancing together.

When pressed on his apparent affinity for the doctored images, Trump brushed off any responsibility, telling Fox Business correspondent Gary Trimble that he simply “didn’t generate them.”

“Somebody came out. They said, ‘Oh look at this,’” Trump said after a campaign event in Asheboro, North Carolina. “These were all made up by other people. A.I. is always very dangerous in that way.”