Trump Quotes

 Several controversial quotes attributed to Donald Trump about wounded or fallen soldiers have circulated widely. Some were spoken publicly by Trump himself; others were reported by journalists and later corroborated by former officials such as John Kelly.

Here are the most notable examples:

• “I like people who weren’t captured.”
  Trump said this publicly in 2015 about John McCain, who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam.  
• According to a 2020 report in The Atlantic, Trump referred to fallen soldiers as “losers” and “suckers” during a 2018 trip to France. The report quoted anonymous sources. Trump denied making the remarks.  
• Former Chief of Staff John Kelly later publicly backed many of those accounts, saying Trump viewed those “shot down or seriously wounded in combat” as “suckers” because “there is nothing in it for them.”  
• Kelly also said Trump did not want to appear publicly with military amputees because “it doesn’t look good for me.” This allegation has been widely reported, though Trump denied it.  
• Another reported quote, attributed to Trump during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, was: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” referring to Americans killed in combat.  

A key point of dispute is that many of the harshest quotes originally came from anonymous sources, and Trump has consistently denied saying them. However, multiple former officials and reporters later said the accounts were accurate, including John Kelly.