Tag: veterans

Trump Lied About Parents Of Korean War Vets, Now He’s Lying About Returned Bodies

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Having already invented “thousands” of parents who begged him to bring home the bodies of their Korean War veteran children, President Donald Trump is now inventing hundreds of such repatriations that haven’t actually happened.

The return of the remains of American service members who were killed in that war has become a major “victory” Trump likes to claim from his June 12 meeting in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“It was the last thing I asked,” he told a gathering of Nevada Republicans on Saturday. “I said, ‘Do you mind, would I be able to get the remains back of all those great heroes from so many years ago?’ And he said, ‘I will do that.’ And you probably read, they have already done 200 people. Which is so great.”

On Monday, Trump told a rally audience in South Carolina: “We’re getting the remains of our great heroes back.”

The only problem: No remains have yet been returned, and it is unclear when that might happen. “We have not yet physically received them,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, but said that he is “optimistic” it would take place “in the not-too-distant future.”

That explanation was not sufficient for Iraq War veteran Will Fischer, with the progressive veterans group VoteVets.

“It’s beyond the pale to lie about remains of fallen service persons already being returned, when they, in fact, haven’t been,” Fischer said. “Remains like these aren’t some prize, where you can make up some big fish stories. These are troops who died in war, and whose families have had no closure. He disrespected Gold Star families during the campaign, and he’s doing it now.”

[Huffington Post]

VA cuts program for homeless vets after touting Trump’s commitment

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Four days after Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin held a big Washington event to tout the Trump administration’s promise to house all homeless vets, the agency did an about-face, telling advocates it was pulling resources from a major housing program.

The VA said it was essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. Instead, the money would go to local VA hospitals that can use it as they like, as long as they show evidence of dealing with homelessness.

Anger exploded on a Dec. 1 call that was arranged by Shulkin’s Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans to explain the move. Advocates for veterans, state officials and even officials from HUD, which co-sponsors the program, attacked the decision, according to five people who were on the call.

“I don’t understand why you are pulling the rug out,” Elisha Harig-Blaine, a National League of Cities housing official who was on the call, said in an interview afterward. “You’re putting at risk the lives of men and women who’ve served this country.”

“The VA is taking its foot off the pedal,” said Leon Winston, an executive at Swords to Plowshares, which helps homeless vets in San Francisco, where he said the VA decision is already having an impact. HUD recently put up 100 housing vouchers for veterans in the program, but the local VA hospital said it could only provide support for 50.

The agency’s move came as HUD on Wednesday released its annual survey showing a 1.5 percent increase in veteran homelessness over 2016 — the first rise since 2010. Most of the jump occurred in Los Angeles, where housing costs are skyrocketing.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sits on a veterans’ affairs subcommittee, called the VA decision “a new low” for the Trump administration that was “especially callous and perplexing” in view of the latest data on homelessness.

In a statement late Wednesday, Shulkin insisted that overall funding for veteran homelessness was not being cut, and seemed to suggest he might reverse the decision. He promised to get input from local VA leaders and others “on how best to target our funding to the geographical areas that need it most.”

HUD data show there were nearly 40,000 homeless veterans in 2016, and even those with housing still need assistance. The program has reduced the number of displaced servicemembers, serving 138,000 since 2010 and cut the number without housing on a given day by almost half. More than half the veterans housed are chronically ill, mentally ill or have substance abuse problems.

[Politico]

Trump spars with widow of slain soldier about condolence call

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Myeshia Johnson, the widow of a soldier killed earlier this month in Niger, said Monday that a condolence call from President Donald Trump “made me cry even worse,” prompting Trump to immediately push back against part of her emotional account via Twitter.

“The president said that he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways and I was — it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it. He couldn’t remember my husband’s name. The only way he remembered my husband’s name was because he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him and that’s when he actually said ‘La David,’” Johnson told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name and that’s what hurt me the most because if my husband is out here fighting for our country, and he risks his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name? And that’s what made me upset and cry even more because my husband was an awesome soldier.”

An hour after Johnson’s ABC interview aired, Trump responded on Twitter to rebut a portion of her account. “I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!” Trump claimed in his online post.

The interview and Trump’s online response to it drags the controversy surrounding the president’s condolence call to Johnson into its second week, prolonging a news cycle that has resurfaced questions about the president’s treatment of Gold Star families. The issue of Trump’s conversation with Johnson has mushroomed just as the White House has sought to focus attention on the president’s proposed tax cuts and reforms and has brought back memories of Trump’s feud with the Gold Star Khan family, who railed against the president at last summer’s Democratic National Convention.

The phone call between Johnson and the president became a point of contention last week when Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), a family friend who was traveling with the widow when she took Trump’s call on speakerphone, told reporters that the president had struggled to remember Army Sgt. La David Johnson’s name and said the slain soldier knew what he signed up for when he enlisted.

As the week wore on, the White House lashed out at Wilson, accusing the hat-wearing congresswoman of being “all hat, no cattle” and suggesting that she had sought to politicize the soldier’s death. Trump himself, in a post to Twitter, wrote that Wilson had “totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”

The Trump administration’s most powerful defense came last Thursday from White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, who shared with reporters what happens when a service member dies and recalled details from the death of his own son, a Marine who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. Kelly shared the words of condolence that his friend, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, had offered him on his son’s death — that “he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed” — a similar sentiment to what Trump sought to express on his call with Johnson.

Kelly, in his briefing room remarks, also lashed out at Wilson, referring to her as an “empty barrel” as he recalled the 2015 dedication of an FBI office in Miami, where he said the Florida lawmaker inappropriately boasted that she had been instrumental in securing the funding for the facility. But the chief of staff’s criticism was quickly discredited: Wilson had not yet been elected to Congress when the money for the FBI building was appropriated, and video of her remarks from the ceremony shows her celebrating the bipartisan legislation she spearheaded to name the new FBI building after two agents killed in a 1986 firefight, not to secure funding for the building.

The White House stood behind Kelly’s statement and Sanders told reporters Friday that “If you want to go after Gen. Kelly, that’s up to you. But I think that if you want to get into a debate with the four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”

Despite the White House’s insistence that Wilson had mischaracterized and fabricated the tenor of Trump’s call, Myeshia Johnson’s account of the conversation aligned with the lawmaker’s account.

“Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated. What she said was 100 percent correct,” she said, explaining that six people, including Wilson, had heard the call as the family made its way to meet the slain soldier’s remains at Dover Air Force Base. “The phone was on speakerphone. Why would we fabricate something like that?”

The widow said she was left “very, very upset and hurt, very” by the president’s call.

She also said that many of her questions surrounding her husband’s death have not yet been answered by the military and that she has not been allowed to view her husband’s body. She said she has not been told how he was killed or why it took two days from the time La David Johnson’s unit was attacked for the military to recover his body.

“Why couldn’t I see my husband? Every time I asked to see my husband, they wouldn’t let me,” she said. “I need to see him so I will know that that is my husband. I don’t know nothing. They won’t show me a finger, a hand. I know my husband’s body from head to toe, and they won’t let me see anything. I don’t know what’s in that box. It could be empty for all I know, but I need — I need to see my husband.”

[Politico]

Leaked Pentagon Email Undermines Trump’s Claim He Contacted Nearly All Gold Star Families

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During President Donald Trump’s run of conservative talk radio interviews last week, the president claimed at that time that he had been in contact with nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember under his presidency. This statement came on the heels of Trump’s false claim that former President Barack Obama and other previous presidents did not call Gold Star families.

In an exclusive report last night, Roll Call obtained an email exchange involving the Pentagon that showed that the White House was aware that Trump had not contacted all of those families at that time and, in fact, the administration knew that it didn’t even have an updated list of all the soldiers who have lost their life this year.

The exchange between the White House and the Defense secretary’s office occurred about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. The White House asked the Pentagon for information about surviving family members of all servicemembers killed after Trump’s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them.Capt. Hallock Mohler, the executive secretary to Defense Secretary James Mattis, provided the White House with information in the 5 p.m. email about how each servicemember had died and the identity of his or her survivors, including phone numbers.The email’s subject line was, “Condolence Letters Since 20 January 2017.”

In his interview earlier that day, the president told Fox News Radio that he believed he had called “everybody” but that he would “use the word virtually everybody” to describe his calls to Gold Star families.

Following Trump’s boast, the Associated Press reached out to 20 families and discovered that half of them had yet to hear from the president. Also, it was unclear of those families that had heard from Trump if those contacts were made this past week after the controversy blew up over the contacting of Gold Star families.

During an appearance at a White House press briefing earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly indicated that Trump first asked for his advice on contacting the family members of fallen soldiers a few days ago, after Trump had been confronted on his 12-day silence on the deadly Niger ambush. Meanwhile, at another press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would only state that Trump had contacted families he had been presented information on.

[Mediaite]

Trump Blocks National Veteran Group on Twitter

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On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump started out the day as he has in the past: by tweeting criticisms of the news media and courts that have blocked his travel ban.

But he also took time to block the Twitter account of VoteVets.org, an organization that represents around 500,000 U.S. military veterans and their families.

Trump first tweeted that the “Fake News Media has never been so wrong or so dirty” and accused journalists of using “phony sources to meet their agenda of hate.”

VoteVets.org responded to Trump in a tweet that said, “You’re describing your road to the White House to a T” and accusing the president of “colluding with an adversary of the United States,” in reference to concerns about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Will Fischer, director of government affairs for VoteVets, told NBC News that he had written the tweets criticizing Trump when the account was suddenly blocked.

“He has no interest in hearing any type of dissent,” said Fischer.

VoteVets.org has been critical of Trump before, most recently in a television ad featuring a veteran of the war in Afghanistan speaking directly to the president about stripping healthcare from vets.

“There’s not an issue being debated that doesn’t affect military families and vets,” said Fischer. “There are nearly 2 million veterans and their spouses on Medicaid. 500,000 veterans are served by Meals on Wheels each year.”

“This is part of a long narrative of Trump’s disregard for veterans and military families,” Fischer said of the blocking.

“Trump only wants to surround himself with Yes-men,” said Fischer, citing a video of Monday’s cabinet meeting in which the attendees praised Trump in an effusive way that was mocked by some.

It’s not the first time the president has blocked his critics on social media. Also on Tuesday, he blocked noted science fiction and horror novelist Stephen King, Center for American Progress fellow Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, and March for Truth organizer Jordan Uhl.

The president appeared to go on a blocking spree throughout the day, also blocking former Guantanamo Bay guard Brandon Neely. In a tweet about being blocked by Trump Tuesday, Neely suggested the president could be “blocking all veterans.”

So many people have been blocked from reading or responding to the president’s tweets that the hashtag #BlockedByTrump began to take off on Tuesday. Because Trump has blocked so many users, there are several other accounts — like @subtrump and @unfollowtrump — that retweet all of his posts on the platform.

Trump’s blocking has caused concern in legal circles, where some have raised questions about whether it could be illegal for a sitting U.S. President to intentionally hide his statements from members of the public.

On June 6, attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sent a letter to Trump asking him to unblock users. The letter says that an elected president’s Twitter account is a “designated public forum” — similar to a school board or city council meeting — and blocking Americans from seeing and responding to it based on their viewpoints is a violation of the First Amendment.

That same day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the president of the United States.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute is currently soliciting submissions from other people who have been blocked by the president.

Fischer said that he wasn’t very surprised about VoteVets.org getting the president’s block treatment.

“If the campaign taught us anything,” said Fischer, “It’s that the days of disbelief and shock are over.”

[NBC News]

 

 

Trump Blames SEAL’s Death on Military

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged responsibility for a botched mission he ordered in Yemen last month, placing the onus on the military and Barack Obama’s administration instead.

Bill Owens, the father of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, the Navy SEAL who died in the operation, demanded an investigation into his son’s death over the weekend. Owens further revealed he couldn’t bear to meet Trump at the airport as Ryan’s casket was carried off the military plane last month.

Asked about the matter during an interview with Fox News’ “Fox ‘n’ Friends,” Trump repeatedly said “they” were responsible for the outcome of the mission, in reference to the military.

“This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something they wanted to do,” he said. “They came to me, they explained what they wanted to do ― the generals ― who are very respected, my generals are the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe. And they lost Ryan.

“I can understand people saying that. I’d feel ― ‘What’s worse?’ There’s nothing worse,” he added. “This was something that they were looking at for a long time doing, and according to [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis it was a very successful mission. They got tremendous amounts of information.”

The raid yielded no significant intelligence, U.S. officials told NBC News on Monday. Earlier this month, however, Pentagon officials said it produced “actionable intelligence.” So, too, did White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who initially called the raid “highly successful.”

“I think anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens,” he said earlier this month. “The raid, the action that was taken in Yemen was a huge success.”

Presidents have traditionally accepted responsibility for their decisions, no matter the circumstances. President Harry Truman popularized the words, “The Buck Stops Here” and kept a sign of the phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. His successors took those words to heart, accepting ultimate responsibility in the wake of some of the nation’s biggest mishaps.

“I’m the president. And I’m always responsible,” President Barack Obama said in 2012 following an attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans died.

“In case you were wondering, in any of your reporting, who’s responsible? I take responsibility,” he said again in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf.

President George W. Bush in 2005 owned up to his administration’s failings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, admitting that “the federal government didn’t fully do its job right.” And he accepted responsibility for his costly decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003, despite faulty intelligence.

President Ronald Reagan in 1987 owned up to his administration’s dealings amid what is known as the Iran-Contra scandal, telling the nation in a prime-time address from the Oval Office that he took “full responsibility” for his administration.

“As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities,” he said. “As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds – well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.”

(h/t Huffington Post)

Media

Successful Fight for Mosul Shows Trump’s Failed Military Claims

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Pentagon officials said Monday that the campaign to reclaim Mosul was proceeding as planned and that so far anti-ISIS forces in Iraq are succeeding in their fight against the terror group.

The military’s upbeat assessment puts Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in an awkward position. His repeated criticism of the handling of the operation means its success could cast shadows on his argument to be the next commander in chief, while his decision to take on the Pentagon once again highlights the sacred cows he has been willing to slay during his unconventional campaign.

For weeks, Trump has lambasted the coalition effort to re-capture the city of Mosul from ISIS, calling the undertaking a “total disaster” and saying the US and its allies were “bogged-down” there even as defense officials say they are encouraged by the progress being made.

“The campaign is on track and moving forward according to plan,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Monday.

“There’s no question that counter-ISIL forces continue to have the momentum in this fight,” he added, using the government’s preferred acronym for the terror organization, also known as Daesh.

Yet Trump repeated his critique of the operation on Monday.

“Did we give Mosul enough advanced notice?” he asked rhetorically during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Whatever happened to the element of surprise?”

Trump’s view contrasts with the assessment of military officials, who have laid out the reasons why they are discussing some — though not all — elements of the Mosul operation.

And, so far, they can point for back-up to developments on the ground to take back Iraq’s second-largest city and key holdout for ISIS.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter “continues to be encouraged by what he is seeing,” Cook said, describing the campaign as proceeding on schedule.

Cook’s view was also echoed by the US special presidential envoy for the counter-ISIS coalition,Amb. Brett McGurk, while speaking Friday in Rome.

While McGurk acknowledged that the campaign for Mosul “will be a long-term effort,” he said that “every single objective has been met and we continue to move forward.”

On the same day, the military spokesman for the anti-ISIS coalition, US Air Force Col. John Dorrian, went even further.

“They were able to get to those places faster than they anticipated that they would,” he said of local forces. “So, the Iraqis continue to be successful in the engagements against Daesh.”

Because Trump has made a concentrated effort to slam the conduct of the Mosul operation, its success could undermine his claim of superior judgment as commander in chief in the final days before the November 8 election.

Non-incumbent candidates for political office always have to walk a fine line while military operations are ongoing. Typically, this involves commending the troops on fighting on the ground while simultaneously blasting the politicians in charge.

But Trump has shown a readiness to deviate from this political playbook, as he has repeatedly done for others throughout the 2016 campaign.

In contrast, then-Sen. Barack Obama made sure to praise the military even as he was highly critical of the 2007 “surge” in Iraq during the run-up to his own campaign for the presidency.

Obama called George W. Bush’s decision to deploy thousands of more troops as part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at reducing violence a “course that will not succeed” during an interview that year with PBS’s Charlie Rose.

Despite slamming the Bush administration, Obama still offered praise for the US troops on the ground, saying they had “performed brilliantly” and calling Gen. David Petraeus, the surge’s architect, an able and competent leader.

Trump’s recent statements on Mosul don’t include these qualifiers of praising the US military officers in charge or the US troops on the ground, though Trump has offered general praise for US troops in other situations.

“Donald Trump is testing lots of what we thought we knew about American politics, including that no one gets elected running against the troops,” said Kori Schake, a former senior Bush official, who has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016.
Schake, who was one of the 50 Republican national security officials that penned an open-letter slamming Trump earlier this year, argued that the Republican nominee’s comments on Mosul were undercutting morale.

“The particular way he’s done it is bad for morale of American forces as well as the allies bearing the brunt of the fight,” she told CNN.

Clinton has been quick to knock Trump for his criticism of the Mosul campaign.

Following his tweet labelling the assault “a disaster,” Clinton told a rally in New Hampshire last week, “He’s basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started. He’s proving to the world what it means to have an unqualified commander-in-chief. It’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Chief among Trump’s criticisms has been the absence of secrecy from the fight, though most analysts believe that given its size and scope, total secrecy and surprise in an operation like Mosul would be impossible.

Pentagon officials have also noted that because the Iraqis were leading the operation, the timeline and discussion of the assault was determined by the government in Baghdad.
Military officials also pointed out that many aspects of the final attack were indeed kept under wraps.

The former dean of the Army War College, retired Army Col. Jeff McCausland, told The New York Times that the candidate’s assessment was off the mark.
“What this shows is Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about military strategy,” he said.

Trump fired back Wednesday when asked about McCausland’s remarks on ABC.
“You can tell your military expert that I’ll sit down and I’ll teach him a couple of things,” he said.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Donald Trump once actually boasted that he knew more than the generals, and later said he could “teach them a couple of things about Mosul.”  As the long fight for Mosul shows early signs of a major success, it turns out his boast was full of hot air, and his elementary understanding of complex military tactics are not better than the generals who dedicated their lives to serving our country.

Trump Suggests Veterans With PTSD Are Not ‘Strong’

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Donald Trump on Monday seemed to imply that military veterans battling post-traumatic stress disorder are not strong because they “can’t handle” the “horror stories” they’ve seen in combat.

Trump delivered a brief address to veterans in Herndon, Virginia, before participating in a Q-and-A session, during which the Republican presidential nominee was asked whether he would “support and fund a more holistic approach to solve the problems and issues of veteran suicide, PTSD, [traumatic brain injuries] and other” mental and behavioral health issues facing veterans, as well as if he would “take steps to restore the historic role of our chaplains and the importance of spiritual fitness and spiritual resiliency programs.”

Trump responded in the affirmative, adding that the U.S. needs that “so badly.”

“When you talk about the mental health problems, when people come back from war and combat — and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over and you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it,” Trump said. “And they see horror stories. They see events that you couldn’t see in a movie. Nobody would believe it.”

The real estate mogul called for more assistance with veterans’ mental health, noting that “it’s one of the things that I think is least addressed” but also “one of the things that I hear the most about when I go around and talk to the veterans.”

“So we’re gonna have a very, very robust — very, very robust — level of performance having to do with mental health. We are losing so many great people that can be taken care of if they had proper care,” Trump continued. “You know, when you hear the 22 suicides a day — big part of your question — but when you hear the 22 suicides a day, that should never be. That should never be. So we’re gonna be addressing that very strongly, and the whole mental health issue is going to be a very important issue when I take over, and the VA is going to be fixed in so many ways, but that’s gonna be one of the ways we’re gonna help, and that’s in many respects going to be the No. 1 thing we have to do because I think it’s really been left behind.”

In a statement released Monday afternoon by Trump’s campaign, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn blamed the media for what he framed as a blatant attempt to “deceive voters and veterans.”

“The media continues to operate as the propaganda arm of Hillary Clinton as they took Mr. Trump’s words out of context in order to deceive voters and veterans—an appalling act that shows they are willing to go to any length to carry water for their candidate of choice,” Flynn said. “Mr. Trump was highlighting the challenges veterans face when returning home after serving their country. He has always respected the service and sacrifice of our military men and women—proposing reforms to Veteran Affairs to adequately address the various issues veterans face when they return home.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Trump’s comments were part of a call for more focus and resources on veteran mental health. It’s a worthy call, of course, but his statement betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding about mental health.

Veterans are not weak for having a mental health disorder. The science shows that PTSD can happen to anyone. It is not a sign of weakness. A number of factors can increase the chance that someone will develop PTSD, many of which are not under that person’s control.

It is insulting that Trump is speaking from ignorance on a very serious subject.

And Trump is no stranger to insulting our veterans.

  • In July, 2015, Trump slammed Senator John McCain for not being a war hero, “because he was captured.”
  • After four months of bragging he gave $1 million dollars to veteran charities that Trump pledged during his Rally For Vets event, journalist uncovered that Trump was lying the entire time. Only then did Trump donate his money to veterans.

Although the rate of veterans suicide was previously estimated to be 22 a day, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs updated that number to 20 in July.

Media

Trump: ‘Illegal Immigrants Are Taken Much Better Care of by This Country Than Our Veterans’

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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally to highlight POW-MIA issues on Memorial Day weekend in Washington, U.S. May 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RTX2EQSU

Donald Trump told a Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally that people in the U.S. illegally often are cared for better than the nation’s military veterans. Trump was speaking at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of thousands of bikers gathered to honor prisoners of war and service members missing in action.

“In many cases, illegal immigrants are taken much better care of by this country than our veterans,” Trump told the attendees. “We’re not going to allow that to happen any longer.”

“We’re gonna rebuild our military,” he continued. “And we’re gonna take care of our veterans. Our veterans have been treated so badly in this country.”

(h/t PBS)

Reality

Donald Trump tries to show he has the back of our country’s veterans, however there has been some rather large controversial moments during his campaign. Trump once said that Senator John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was caught by the enemy, and has yet to apologize for making that comment. Trump also claimed for 4 months that he donated $1 million dollars to veteran charities, which he eventually did but only after journalists uncovered he was lying the whole time.

Donald Trump does have a point that veterans must be treated better by our lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, as the Veterans Administration has seen its troubles over the years. From unsatisfactory treatment and conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Center and long wait times under George W. Bush, to Obama firing Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in 2014 for long wait times and false record-keeping. And not much has been done because to this day wait times are still an issue at VA hospitals.

However, all that aside, the main issue here is how Donald Trump is making a false choice between veterans and illegal immigrants. He is instilling a nativist “us-versus-them” mentality to his supports by exploiting veterans to play on patriotism by pitting them against illegal Mexican immigrants. In effect, Donald Trump is trying to convince you that there are only two choices, “fund vets or fund illegal immigrants,” when there are actually more than two options.

There are probably hundreds of different and competing ideas to raise revenues or reform spending in order to fund better VA services. For example, we could end or cut back on corporate welfare, which according to the right-leaning CATO Institute cost taxpayers $100 billion per year. And another choice would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire, which according to the Congressional Research Service cost taxpayers on average $350 billion per year. Even Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare would leave 37 million people uninsured again but would save taxpayers on average $67 billion per year. To boil a very complex answer down to “either vets or illegals” is simply illogical and dishonest.

Finally, Trump is pushing some long debunked far-right conservative myths how illegal immigrants are “a drain on the system” as the basis of his statement. These myths come from anti-immigration organizations, such as Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform, who consistently put out flawed studies that feed right-wing ideology for stronger immigration policies.

The fact is tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, exceed the cost of the federal services they use. Undocumented immigrants pay into, but do not qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits. Most of these programs require proof of legal immigration status and under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, even legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for more than five years.

Media

Trump Campaign Admits It Did Not Raise $6 Million for Veterans

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Trump at rally for vets in Des Moines

One night in January, Donald Trump skipped a GOP debate and instead held his own televised fundraiser for veterans. At the end of the night, Trump proclaimed it a huge success: “We just cracked $6 million, right? Six million.”

Now, Trump’s campaign says that number is incorrect.

Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said the fundraiser actually netted about $4.5 million, or 75 percent of the total that Trump announced.

Lewandowski blamed the shortfall on Trump’s own wealthy acquaintances. He said some of them had promised big donations that Trump was counting on when he said he had raised $6 million. But Lewandowski said those donors backed out and gave nothing.

“There were some individuals who he’d spoken to, who were going to write large checks, [who] for whatever reason . . . didn’t do it,” Lewandowski said in a telephone interview. “I can’t tell you who.”

Lewandowski also said he did not know whether a $1 million pledge from Trump himself was counted as part of the $4.5 million total. He said Trump has given that amount, but he declined to identify any recipients.

The comments appear to be the first acknowledgment — almost four months later — that Trump’s fundraiser had brought in less than the candidate said. Lewandowski said he did not know the exact total raised or how much of it remained unspent.

Even with the lower total, Trump’s fundraiser brought in millions of dollars for veterans’ charities. The Washington Post’s accounting, based on interviews with charities, has found at least $3.1 million in donations to veterans groups.

Trump’s fundraiser Jan. 28 was an indelible moment, a one-night showcase of the GOP front-runner’s boldness and charm.

In a single evening in Des Moines, Trump showed Fox News — the host of that night’s Trump-less debate — that he was powerful enough to spurn the Fox network.

At the same time, he showed a national audience that he could conjure a multimillion-dollar benefit out of nothing, using connections, showmanship and his own wealth.

“Donald Trump — another great builder in New York, now a politician — I can’t stand this, a politician,” Trump said, in his trademark run-on style, after he’d listed a series of gifts from other wealthy friends. “I don’t want to be called a politician. All talk, no action — I refuse to be called a politician. Donald Trump gave $1 million. Okay?”

In the days after the fundraiser, Trump repeated the $6 million figure in TV appearances and at Iowa rallies. “At that rally we raised, in one hour, $6 million. Is that good?” Trump said four days afterward at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

At first, he was very public about giving the money away. In rallies across Iowa, Trump would call representatives of local veterans groups up to the stage and present them with oversize checks.

In some cases, the money came from friends of Trump’s who sent checks directly to veterans groups. In other cases, the money was routed through Trump’s personal foundation.

For the groups that received this money — often dealing with aging veterans from the Vietnam War, along with returning troops from Iraq and Afghanistan — the money was an enormous help.

“It’s all long gone,” said James Kallstrom, a retired FBI official who is the chairman of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. In March, his group received $100,000, which Kallstrom said would go toward $30,000 educational grants for the children of Marines killed on active duty. “I believe there was a helicopter crash that had, oh God, I forget how many there were. . . . They’re all young, and they all have young children.”

But, as the race continued, the checks from the fundraiser began to come less frequently. The most recent check identified by The Post was dated March 25.

In recent weeks, Trump and his campaign repeatedly declined to give new details about how much they have given away.

“Why should I give you records?” Trump said in an interview with The Post this month. “I don’t have to give you records.”

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Trump’s refusal to divulge how much of the money he had distributed raised questions about whether the candidate intended the fundraiser primarily as a public-relations effort for himself.

“That’s just shady. Right? No matter how you cut it, that’s just shady,” Rieckhoff said. “If he was going to make it right, a couple of weeks before Memorial Day would be a good time to do it. It behooves him, not just politically but ethically, to come forward and account for this money.”

Trump provided no official way for charities to apply for the money. Groups around the country still tried, sending letters and hitting up local veterans-for-Trump leaders.

“We haven’t heard anything,” said Judy Schaffer of Heroes to Heroes, a New Jersey-based group that sends veterans on nondenominational trips to Israel to prevent suicide and promote “spiritual healing.” Her group had received a donation from Trump’s personal foundation years before.

“We have a waiting list of over 200 veterans. Many of them have already attempted suicide,” Schaffer said this week. “And it keeps me up at night, not being able to send more people.”

Lewandowski said Trump has decided on about two dozen groups that will get the remainder of the money in the next couple of weeks. He said the groups have been vetted and had been chosen by word of mouth within the Trump campaign or from causes Trump had previously supported.

Lewandowski said Trump should not be faulted for promising $6 million in donations.

“What he said was, ‘We hope to get $6 million.’ He said this at an event where we were trying to get money. It was a best guess,” Lewandowski said. “That was his goal. His goal was to get somewhere around $6 million.”

On the night of the fundraiser, Trump named nine big donors, including himself.

Since then, The Post has found evidence from Trump’s staff, from the donors or from veterans charities that received money that seven of those nine gave money as promised. Those gifts added up to $3.78 million.

On top of that, Trump said small-dollar donors gave $670,000 over the Internet. That adds up to $4.45 million.

So, were those other two big donors among the ones who backed out?

One of them was a shopping-mall magnate from Ohio who did not respond to multiple calls, emails and messages from The Post seeking to confirm his donations. But even if that man did back out, his pledge was so small — $50,000 — that it would make little difference in a tally of millions.

The other donor had made a much bigger promise: Trump, with his vow to give $1 million.

In the past few days, The Post has interviewed 22 veterans charities that received donations as a result of Trump’s fundraiser. None of them have reported receiving personal donations from Trump.

Did Trump make good on his promise to give from his personal funds?

“The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said.

To whom did Trump give, and in what amounts?

“He’s not going to share that information,” Lewandowski said.

Reality

Controversy still surrounds Trump’s January fundraiser for vets called “Scared of Debate Questions From Megyn Kelly.” Sorry that was a typo. The fundraiser was called “Rally For Vets” and Trump claimed it raised $6 million dollars, including $1 million of his own money.

Four months later and the Washington Post uncovered the fundraiser only netted $4.5 million and only $3.1 million has been distributed to charities. Furthermore the Trump campaign refuses to provide evidence that Trump donated his promised $1 million dollars.

This is serious stuff. There are real veterans with real physical and psychological problems in need. If Trump continues to claim he’s for vets then this is a lousy way to prove it.

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