Donald Trump has a long history of disrespect for deceased members of the military and immigrants. Nowhere did his disdain for the two groups meld more intensely than after the murder of U.S. Army soldier Vanessa Guillén, whom the former president called a “fucking Mexican” when informed about the cost of her funeral, according to a bombshell report from The Atlantic on Tuesday.
Guillén was 20 years old when she was murdered in 2020 by a fellow soldier in Fort Hood, Texas. The high-profile case triggered a slew of investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and the mistreatment of enlisted women at the Army base. Guillén was the daughter of Mexican immigrants, but was born in Houston and thus an American citizen. Her parents were invited to the White House for a televised meeting with Trump, who promised that he would help “financially” with the funeral. Given the attention surrounding her murder, a public memorial service was held for Guillén, followed by a smaller burial attended by members of Houston’s city government.
But while Trump appeared magnanimous in public, what unfolded behind the scenes was a different story. According to contemporaneous notes and interviews obtained by The Atlantic, on Dec. 4, 2020, Trump asked members of his staff if he had been billed for the funeral. “What did it cost?” he asked.
When informed that the total costs amounted to $60,000, Trump was incensed. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” he reportedly told his then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “Don’t pay it!”
Trump reportedly complained later in the day that these “fucking people” are “trying to rip me off.”
A spokesperson for the former president denied the exchange, calling the story an “outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.” An attorney for Guillén’s family told The Atlantic that while a bill was sent to the White House, no reimbursement was ever received. Portions of the burial costs were instead covered by donations and the Army.
It’s by no means the first time the former president disparaged a member of the military in a moment of rage, but more terrifying is Trump’s apparent belief that the armed forces owe him blind, unquestioning loyalty.
Just recently, the former president said the military should be used against American citizens who oppose him, whom he described as “the enemy within.” In 2022, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly wrote in his memoir that Trump openly fantasized about having generals who were as loyal to him as “the German generals in World War II.”
When Kelly attempted to remind Trump that the Nazi dictator’s highest-ranking officials “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off,” Trump responded that “no, no, no, they were totally loyal to him.”
Kelly went into more detail about the exchange for The Atlantic on Tuesday, adding that he had asked Trump if he meant Otto Von Bismarck’s generals or the Franco-Prussian war.
“I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler,” Kelly recalled.
Trump was apparently not familiar with Erwin Rommel and the failed 1944 plot to assassinate the genocidal dictator who Trump seemingly envied.
“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump had said, according to the recollections of two people who spoke to The Atlantic. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”
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