President Joe Biden tore into former President Donald Trump during CNN’s presidential debate Thursday, hurling Trump’s alleged words back at him.
“You’re the sucker, you’re the loser!” Biden fumed.
Biden’s dig came as he highlighted reports Trump privately disparaged U.S. servicemembers and veterans, reportedly calling fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”
Trump’s comment was first reported in 2020 by The Atlantic and confirmed by former White House chief of staff John Kelly.
Trump, for his part, has denied ever making that remark.
Biden spoke of his recent visit to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day—and his visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where more than 2,200 fallen American soldiers are buried.
Trump had been scheduled to visit the same cemetery in 2018 but the visit was canceled, which the White House attributed to poor weather conditions.
However, in The Atlantic report, it was here that Trump reportedly disparaged the fallen soldiers, asking staffers, “‘Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.’”
In his jab at Trump, Biden noted that his late son Beau Biden spent a year in Iraq and that Trump did not visit Aisne-Marne American Cemetery.
“[He] said I don’t want to go in there because they’re a bunch of losers and suckers,” Biden said. “My son was not a loser was not a sucker.”
“You’re the sucker. You’re the loser,” he added.
In a Truth Social post that came on the heels of Biden’s visit to the cemetery—as well as the Biden campaign releasing an attack ad capitalizing on the quote—Trump once again denied calling those buried there suckers and losers.
“Obviously, I never said that dead Soldiers are ‘losers and suckers.’ Who would say such a thing?” Trump said, adding that the statement is promoted by “the FASCIST SCUM that is destroying our Country.”
During the debate on Thursday, Trump once again denied the alleged quote.
“First of all, that was a made up quote ‘suckers and losers.’ They made it up,” Trump claimed. “It was in a third rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines.”
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