In what has now turned into a national controversy, former President Donald Trump made a political appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday — despite the Trump team being warned explicitly that campaigning over veterans’ graves was against the law — and Fox News wasted no time cheering him on.
NPR reported that while at the cemetery on the anniversary of the 2021 Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan, members of Trump’s staff got into an altercation with an Arlington National Cemetery official who attempted to enforce the law “which prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within the cemeteries.” In a statement reported on by The New York Times, the Army confirmed NPR’s reporting and noted that “the Trump campaign had been made aware that federal law prohibits filming for political purposes.”
The Trump campaign on Tuesday posted a TikTok campaign video of Trump’s trip to the cemetery, which included images of his visit to Section 60 — an area where such political photography is expressly prohibited. In response to the campaign footage, the family of a Green Beret whose grave site appeared in the videos has “expressed concern” over the Trump team filming without permission.
The political goal of Trump’s Arlington visit was immediately echoed by his Fox News allies, who spent Monday lauding the GOP presidential nominee for the appearance, strangely berating both Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for not attending a Trump campaign event, and going as far as to suggest that Trump’s visit to the cemetery (which is an increasing political scandal) had halted Harris’ “convention momentum.”
Following NPR’s initial reporting, Fox News has barely touched on the controversy, and the first segment to mention it was largely dismissive, describing the altercation as a “dust up” and the media coverage as a distraction.
Here are some examples of how Fox first portrayed Trump’s Arlington National Cemetery visit, before it turned into a debacle: