Trump blows off honoring dead soldiers to attend golf tournament
President Donald Trump isn’t attending the dignified transfer of four American soldiers who died in Lithuania, because he has instead chosen to attend a Saudi-backed golf tournament at his country club in Doral, Florida.
Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., Staff Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, and Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, all in their twenties, died during a training exercise in the Baltic region of Europe when the military vehicle they were driving sank into a swamp, Military.com reported.
Their bodies began their dignified transfer back to the United States on Thursday and are expected to arrive on Friday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. In place of Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will be present at the transfer, according to Fox News.
“The President of the United States as of now will not meet the remains of our service members when they land at Dover…because he will be at a golf tournament,” Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote in a post on X. “Now you see why we are worried about his cuts to the [Department of Veterans Affairs]?”
Unlike Trump, thousands of Lithuanians have honored the soldiers, lining the streets of Vilnius as the hearses carrying their bodies drove to the airport on Thursday.
“For us, it is more than a duty, it is an emotion. We have experienced trials in our history and therefore we understand well what loss is, what death is, what honorable duty is,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said in a speech, according to the Associated Press.
For Trump, ignoring the dignified transfer is about as respectful of fallen service members as when, during the 2024 presidential campaign, he used the graves of dead soldiers to stage a photo op.
Last August, Trump’s campaign used a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to create campaign content, with his staffers verbally abusing and even getting into a physical altercation with a cemetery official who told the campaign that it was against the rules to film in a section of the cemetery where recent casualties are buried.
All of this is part of Trump’s long history of dishonoring fallen soldiers.
He has called soldiers who died “suckers” and “losers.” And in 2018, he canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France, where thousands of American troops who died in World War I are buried, because feared the rain would mess up his hair and “he did not believe it important to honor American war dead,” according to The Atlantic, which cited four people familiar with his statements.
Trump has denied saying those things. But Trump’s former chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, confirmed in 2023 that Trump made those disparaging remarks.
Kelly wrote in a statement to CNN at the time:
What can I add that has not already been said? … A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family—for all Gold Star families—on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France. A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason—in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.
Ultimately, Trump choosing golf over honoring fallen soldiers is par for the course—pun not intended. The selfish commander-in-chief left for Florida on Thursday just one day after tanking the stock market due to his idiotic tariff policy.