Former President Donald Trump's stunt at Arlington National Cemetery was reprehensible, wrote Kevin Carroll, a senior counselor to John Kelly during the Trump administration, in a new analysis for The Guardian.
The Trump campaign, by some reports, tried to stage a fake memorial service for fallen troops in Afghanistan in the cemetery and then attack Vice President Kamala Harris for not attending it, only to be thwarted by the fact that such a campaign event is illegal to photograph in that portion of the cemetery, and end up quarreling with caretakers.
"Donald Trump and his staff knew – and were reminded of – federal regulations specifically prohibiting the misconduct their campaign engaged in at Arlington’s section 60 this week," wrote Carroll. "But the law aside, only a gross lack of manners, decency and humility could incline a person to film a fundraising appeal over the resting places of dead men and women who cannot decline to participate in the coarse spectacle. The photo of a grinning Trump giving a jaunty thumbs-up over these patriots’ graves is an indelible image of narcissism risen to the point of sociopathy."
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The fact that the campaign is accused of physically assaulting a woman employed with the Department of the Army who tried to enforce the law makes it much worse, wrote Carroll: "The victim reportedly refrained from filing charges due to a reasonable fear of violence or harassment from Trump’s supporters. Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign defamed this woman as mentally ill. His running mate, JD Vance, said Kamala Harris could 'go to hell' for her campaign’s suggestion that the unauthorized footage was intended for use as political footage – just before Trump used it for exactly that."
It's just another case of Trump showing no respect for the service and sacrifice of American troops, wrote Carroll — best exemplified by his characterization of fallen Marines as "losers and suckers."
"Trump sees the armed services as yet another entity to be misused for his personal benefit, damaged and then discarded just as he has with his bankrupt businesses, the evangelical Christian churches and the Republican party," wrote Carroll, concluding, "the idea of serving others, much less giving one’s life for others, is anathema to Trump. This attitude would be a sad commentary about any man, but ought to disqualify someone seeking to serve as commander-in-chief."