Veterans Group Targets Donald Trump in Ad Over ‘Greatest Insult of All’

Progressive veterans’ group VoteVets has released a new attack-ad on Donald Trump, listing the presidential candidate’s long history of alleged and confirmed insults to veterans.

“We’ve got Trump on the run. Scared, his insults about service members catching up with him, he’s panicked,” the ad opens.

The ad was posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday and had been viewed 617,000 times by Monday morning.

The ad lists some of most infamous comments Trump is said to have made about veterans, including the 2020 allegation by retired major general Paul Eaton that Trump dismissed dead soldiers as “suckers” and “losers” behind closed doors. Although Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation, his ex-Chief of Staff John Kelly said in 2023 that it did happen.

The ad accuses Trump of dodging the Vietnam War draft. Trump received four education deferments and one medical deferment to avoid the conflict. He got the medical deferment when he was diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels at the age of 22.

Trump says the diagnosis was accurate but the daughters of the podiatrist who made the diagnosis later said their father did it as a favor for Trump’s father Fred.

The ad then brought up the now-infamous comment Trump made in 1998 during an interview with radio host Howard Stern, where Trump, while joking about his sexual exploits, said that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was his “personal Vietnam.”

Although that comment was said in a joking context, it has often been criticized as disrespectful to veterans given the circumstances of how Trump avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The ad then turned its attention to Trump’s most recent controversy with veterans, stemming from an altercation at a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery.

“And now may be the greatest insult of all: turning a military cemetery visit into a political stunt with cameras in tow,” the VoteVets ad said.

Trump was criticized last week after his campaign staff got into an altercation with a cemetery staff member who was trying to prevent them from taking video footage at a grave site, which the cemetery confirmed would be a violation of federal law.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung insulted the staff member, telling Newsweek she was “suffering from a mental health episode,” while another campaign official, Chris LaCivita, called the staff member a “despicable individual” who “does not deserve to represent the [hallowed] grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.”

Military officials said the woman declined to press charges because she feared retaliation from Trump’s supporters.

Trump’s campaign’s later released a campaign video on TikTok using the footage from the memorial.

Trump continues to defend filming a campaign video at the cemetery, despite facing criticism for it being disrespectful and illegal by the U.S. Army, veterans’ groups, some of the families of the slain soldiers whose graves he photographed without permission, and by former members of his administration.

“Donald Trump, the grave markers which veterans and military families drop a knee to are not your political props,” the VoteVets ad said. “They represent the heroes we served alongside, men and women you could never measure up to, friends who lived and died by the oath we all swore to uphold, something you will never understand. And it’s why we’re doing our damndest to make sure no service member ever has to salute you as commander-in-chief ever again.”

Despite the numerous controversies, Trump maintains substantial political support from veterans.

Newsweek has contacted Trump’s campaign for comment via email.