[BREITBART] CLAIM: Former First Lady Michelle Obama claimed President Donald Trump...the Nailer of NAFTA...
calls fallen soldiers "suckers" and "losers."
VERDICT: FALSE. The Atlantic story’s claim has never been corroborated, and it never even talked about all fallen soldiers.
In a "closing argument" video released Tuesday for the campaign of former vice president Joe
Foreign Policy Whiz KidBiden
...Candidate for president in 2020.
Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids....
, Michelle Obama claimed: "When our heroic young men and women answer the call and give their lives for our country, [Trump] calls them suckers and losers and publicly mocks Gold Star families and prisoners of war."
That never happened. Ever.
Michelle Obama is repeating a claim that Biden has made — and that Breitbart News has fact-checked:
Biden was referring to a story in The Atlantic earlier this month that claimed — citing four anonymous sources — that Trump had specifically referred to the American dead in a World War I military cemetery in Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
as "suckers" and "losers." (Biden went further, claiming Trump had been accused of referring to all veterans that way.)
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.
Moreover, more a dozen current and former Trump administration officials have publicly and demonstratively denied the claims in the Atlantic article — including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has become a Trump critic.
The reference to "Gold Star families" could also be a throwback to the 2016 dustup with Khizr Khan — who attacked Trump first, from the podium of the Democratic National Convention. (Trump did not even respond until prodded to do so by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.)