A former advisor to Donald Trump has claimed that the former President did not want to be seen with wounded veterans, and demanded they be excluded from a possible military parade, according to a report.
John F. Kelly, Donald Trump's former chief of staff, revealed that Trump did not want to be seen with disabled veterans. After visiting the Bastille Day parade in France, Trump expressed desires to hold his own military parade, but without disabled veterans, according to The Atlantic.
Kelly told the publication that Trump told him, "I don't want them. It doesn't look good for me."
At an installation ceremony in 2019, General Mark Milley chose Army Captain Luis Avila, who lost a leg in Afghanistan and suffered brain damage, to sing "God Bless America" for the ceremony. During the event, Avila nearly fell over in his wheelchair due to the ground being soft from rain.
While Milley's wife and former Vice President Mike Pence ran over to help, Trump reportedly turned to Milley and said, "Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded," according to The Atlantic.
Kelly, a former Marine General, added that Trump would often question why citizens would put their lives on the line for the United States, including one instance when the former President toured Arlington National Cemetery, as reported by the New York Times.
"And I thought he was asking one of these rhetorical kind of, you know, questions," Kelly told the Times. "But I didn't realize he was serious — he just didn't see what the point was. As I got to know him, again, this selflessness is something he just didn't understand. What's in it for them?"
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement to the Times that Kelly had "beclowned" himself by talking about "debunked stories."
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