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President Donald Trump, who reportedly referred to soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” is being criticized for attending the arrival of the remains of the first six American service members killed in the Iran war wearing a baseball cap.
Trump wore the white cap with the words “USA” on it on Saturday as the Iran war casualties were carried off an Air Force transport plane, according to The Washington Post. On Monday, two Republican voices spoke out against Trump’s fashion choice.
“This fool has ABSOLUTELY no sense of dignity or appreciation for the moment,” Michael Steele, Republican National Committee chair from 2009 to 2011, wrote on X. “It is called the Dignified Transfer for a reason. Take your d--n hat off!!”
Douglas Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee, argued that there is a partisan double standard.
“I know what Republicans would have said if Obama had done this — I would have written the statement,” Heye posted on X. “Shameful.”
As The Washington Post pointed out, Trump and other Republicans criticized other world leaders for their supposedly inappropriate fashion choices. Last year, when meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, pro-Trump media (and later Trump himself) claimed Zelenskyy was rude for not wearing a suit to the meeting and thereby not showing sufficient gratitude. In 2021, Republicans criticized President Joe Biden for checking his watch while the remains of soldiers who died in the Afghanistan war were transferred. In 2013, President Barack Obama was criticized for asking Marines to hold umbrellas over him during a rainy news conference with himself and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This is not Trump’s only questionable recent interaction with the military. Earlier in March former MS NOW writer Jonathan Larsen told “Left Hook” creator Wajahat Ali that more than 110 complaints have been made about commanders in every military branch to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about their use of Christian nationalist rhetoric. This includes non-commissioned officers being told that the Iran war is “part of God’s plan” and that Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”
Trump has also controversially tried to save money in his budget by taking it out of veterans’ benefits. In February Trump abruptly announced that they were lowering veterans’ disability ratings and subsequent monthly compensation. After tremendous outcry from veterans groups, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins reversed the policy.
“DAV is extremely disappointed and alarmed by VA’s decision to issue an interim final rule today that could potentially reduce disability compensation for millions of disabled veterans,” Coleman Nee, national commander of Disabled American Veterans, said at the time the policy was first announced.