Donald Trump Hates the Military
And He Isn't Trying to Hide It
Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It’s a lesson I’ve struggled with in my life. Underneath my armor of cynicism is a hopeful optimist who wants to believe the best in people. It’s how I’ve survived.
But it turns out the good doctor is much more intelligent than I am, including on this point. This is why it absolutely drives me nuts when people say that Donald Trump is a supporter of the military.
He’s not. He never has been. And he’s never pretended to be.
Beyond just showing us how he feels, Trump has been explicitly telling us . . . for years.
In his younger days, Trump was disqualified from serving (except in a time of war or other national emergency) due to a medical examination that purportedly revealed evidence of bone spurs. However, his former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified that “Trump acknowledged to [his] advisors that he made up a fake injury to avoid military service, because ‘[he] wasn’t going to Vietnam’.” Around that same time, Trump publicly mocked former prisoner of war John McCain, stating in a 2015 interview that “I like people [who] weren’t captured.”
(Before you come for me, don’t waste your breath trying to argue that Biden and Trump are the same because both were disqualified from serving. First, Biden was medically disqualified for exercise-induced asthma. This chronic condition could have posed significant safety risks to both himself and his fellow servicemembers if he suffered a respiratory attack during combat. Second, at no time has Biden or anyone close to him literally CONFESSED that he fabricated an injury to avoid wartime service. And third? Biden is gone, people. Come January 20th, he’ll bear no impact on the decision-making of our government, so arguing about his credentials amounts to nothing more than wasting our precious time.)
As Trump’s political star began to rise, so did his vitriolic military speak. In 2017, Trump had a phone call with the family of 25-year-old fallen soldier Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who died while on patrol in Niger. In a move straight out of his beloved victim-blaming playbook, Trump told the family that Johnson “must have known what he signed up for.” The family called the statement “disrespectful,” which is a far kinder sentiment than Trump offered them.
In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France “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 conversations with senior staff, Trump said that the cemetery was filled with deceased “losers” who were “suckers” for being killed in action.
In 2019, Trump chastised his staff for allowing wounded veteran Luis Avila to perform at his welcoming ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. Avila was injured during service by an improvised explosive device (IED), resulting in a leg amputation, two strokes, two heart attacks, and related brain damage. Following his performance, Trump thanked Avila but said within earshot, “‘Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.' Never let Avila appear in public again.”
In 2020, Trump said that he did not consider traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) to be “very serious injuries,” resulting only in “headaches” and “a couple of other things.” To be clear, TBIs are among the most severe and complex injuries which can be incurred during service, resulting in cognitive and physical impairment that can cripple a veteran’s ability to function independently—or at all.
Also in 2020, Trump met with the family of 20-year-old Spc. Vanessa Guillén. The case was tragic enough on its own—Vanessa was killed to cover up her harassment and sexual assault by a superior officer—but was made even more so by Trump’s engagement with the family. During their televised meeting, he offered to pay for Vanessa’s funeral costs, stating that he had made similar offers to other military families. But when he received the bill, “Trump became angry. ‘It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!’ He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and ordered: ‘Don’t pay it!’ Later that day, he was still agitated. ‘Can you believe it?’ he said, according to a witness. ‘Fucking people, trying to rip me off’.”
And as recently as 2024, Trump turned the hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery into a campaign backdrop, flouting cemetery policies and both verbally and physically abusing an employee who tried to enforce them. It was such a flagrant perversion of sacred grounds that the Army conducted a formal inquiry into the matter. More than that, it was a disgraceful manipulation of the victims at Abbey Gate, who died in the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Donald Trump paved the way for with his Doha Agreement.
The problem isn’t simply that Trump’s language and misconduct is degrading and dehumanizing—it’s that it also serves as the basis for his policymaking, with direct consequences for the military community.
You needn’t look further than Trump’s own cabinet picks for evidence of such. Thus far, he has nominated John Phelan to serve as Secretary of the Navy, a man who has never served in the military or a relevant civilian defense role. While this isn’t a formal requirement of the post, there is no denying that the military and private workforces possess different structures, values, and needs. We can’t reasonably expect Phelan to be a successful leader or advocate when he’s never navigated the landscape before.
This appointment also comes at a precarious time for our Navy, which faces a “shrinking fleet, expanded overseas commitments, and an uncertain budget environment.” These challenges exist as one of our primary military rivals (China) continues to not only increase its own naval capacity but position itself for a potential conflict over Taiwan. In contrast, our current fleet is overextended and dwindling while facing a bureaucratic nightmare that makes its own expansion next to impossible. So, I have to question the wisdom of appointing a leader with no experience in overcoming these barriers.
And then there’s Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense. The best that can be said about Hegseth is that he possesses actual military experience, having served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard with deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq. But there’s also no denying that Hegseth embodies the very worst of military culture by openly challenging the role of women in combat, misidentifying and misgendering trans servicemembers, and publicly defending those accused of war crimes. At a time when the military is facing a recruiting crisis, I’m not sure that misogyny and bigotry are the keys to military unity.
(And sure, this is a man who has been ousted from prior positions due to “financial mismanagement, sexist behavior, and being repeatedly intoxicated on the job”—but at least he pays off his accusers and has pinky-promised to stop drinking on the job!)
These nominations amount to a leadership structure that is ready and willing (something 47 isn’t used to) to translate Trump’s hate(ful) speech into formal laws and policies. Trump officials point to a clear plan to “de-woke” the military by firing top officials who challenge his policy positions; abolishing diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff; reimplementing the ban on trans servicemembers; removing female servicemembers from ground combat operations; removing troops from European ally nations; and expending resources on such non-essential missions as changing the colors of Air Force One.
Even more alarming is Trump’s clear intent to use the military for his own personal and political gain. Just last month, Trump confirmed his “plans to use the US military to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented migrants,” in part by repositioning troops at the border. Previously, Trump considered using the Insurrection Act to quell the Black Lives Matter protests and invoking martial law after his 2020 defeat. Beyond just contemplating, he also historically ceased joint military operations with South Korea so as not to anger his pals from the North and openly called for his opponents to face a military trial for treason (a crime punishable by death).
And what of our nation’s veteran population, standing at 16.2 million members as of 2023? At a minimum, Trump has big plans to significantly decrease the size of the federal workforce, of which veterans make up 30 percent. When accessing support, those requiring assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs are likely to see even longer wait times for medical treatment, disability adjudications, and benefit distributions. Project 2025 also lays the groundwork for massive changes to the disability benefits system by “eliminating concurrent eligibility for disability and retirement benefits, restricting disability coverage, closing low-priority VA medical care enrollment, and privatizing the Department of Defense’s TRICARE system.” And do you happen to be a fan of the PACT Act, which awards presumptive service connection to veterans who satisfy specific criteria? Well, 47 is not and seems poised to block similar legislation meant to streamline veterans’ access to benefits.
Ultimately, my girl Maya was right: Trump has shown us who he is, and it’s on us to believe him. Over the years, this man has openly mocked Gold Star families, prisoners of war, and those wounded in action, taken decisive action to limit veterans’ access to meaningful care and necessary benefits, and revealed his intent to turn our nation’s military into a personal police force.
You can’t support one while supporting the other, and I know whose team I’m on. Do you?
He hates the military bc deep down he is ashamed they are better than him. And bc he can’t control them in the way he wants.
Thank you, Kate. We shouldn’t need the reminders but….
So true that he has shown us repeatedly who he is. And yet - here we are. Why is the astonishing question.