Fact Check: Biden Claims Trump Called Military Veterans ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’

CLAIM: President Joe Biden repeated a debunked claim that former President Donald Trump called the men and women serving in the military, “suckers” and “losers.”

VERDICT: False. This claim was published by the Atlantic, using anonymous sources, and has been debunked.

During the presidential debate on Thursday, Biden claimed that Trump had referred to military veterans as “suckers” and “losers.”

“I was recently in France for D-Day and I spoke to all about those heroes that died. I went to the World War I cemetery he refused to go to,” Biden said. “He was standing with his four-star general, and he told me, ‘I don’t want to go in there because they’re a bunch of losers and suckers.'”

The story from the Atlantic in September 2020, claims that Trump refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France and told senior staff members, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

After the story came out, Trump criticized the outlet, calling it a “disgraceful situation by a magazine” to claim that he “would make statements negative to our military and our fallen heroes.”

Despite this, both Biden and former President Barack Obama repeated this false claim.

As Breitbart News previously reported, days after the article from the Atlantic was published, Biden stated that the claim had been confirmed true by every outlet:

No one else has corroborated the Atlantic‘s claim. Even Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, who claimed that she had “confirmed” other details in the story (from two similarly anonymous sources), could not confirm the Atlantic‘s “suckers” and “losers” claim.

Obama repeated this debunked claim in October 2020, stating that Biden “would never call” military members “suckers or losers.”