Trump honors fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, while attacking Biden and
judges
[May 27, 2025]
By SEUNG MIN KIM
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump paid tribute to fallen
service members during a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National
Cemetery on Monday, in an address that honored the “great, great
warriors" yet also briefly veered into politics as he boasted of a
nation he is “fixing after a long and hard four years.”
Though the holiday is one that U.S. presidents typically treat with pure
solemnity, Trump began it with an all-caps Memorial Day social media
post that attacked his predecessor and called federal judges who have
blocked his deportation initiatives "monsters who want our country to go
to hell.”
Yet at Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 have been
laid to rest, Trump commemorated the sacrifice of U.S. service members
and singled out several Gold Star families to tell the stories of their
fallen relatives.
“We just revere their incredible legacy," Trump said. “We salute them in
their eternal and everlasting glory. And we continue our relentless
pursuit of America’s destiny as we make our nation stronger, prouder,
freer and greater than ever before.”
“Their valor," he said, “gave us the freest, greatest and most noble
republic ever to exist on the face of the earth. A republic that I am
fixing after a long and hard four years.”
During his remarks, Trump told the story of Navy Senior Chief Petty
Officer Shannon Kent, killed along with three other Americans by a
suicide bomber in 2019 in Syria, leaving behind her husband, 3-year-old
son and 18-month-old son.
The Pine Plains, New York, native was on her fifth combat deployment, he
said, embedded with a team hunting Islamic State group militants in
Syria, serving as linguist, translator and cryptologic technician
working alongside special forces.
“She was among the first women ever to do it, and she did it better than
anyone,” Trump said, calling out Kent's family for applause at the
ceremony.
The crowd also heard of Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Elroy Harworth from
Erhard, Minnesota, whose plane went down in enemy territory during the
Vietnam War, dying while his wife was seven months pregnant. His son,
who was cheered in the audience, followed his father's path and has been
in the Army for 20 years.
There was also the story of Army Cpl. Ryan McGhee of Fredericksburg,
Virginia, who enlisted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and whose
mother was in the audience.
Trump said McGhee knew he wanted to be an Army Ranger since he saw the
towers fall on that day, did three tours in Afghanistan, then deployed
to Iraq. Sixteen years ago this month, the president said, McGhee died
in a firefight, and “gave his life at 21 years old."
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President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth and Major General Trevor Bredenkamp, commanding
general of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and the U.S.
Army Military District of Washington, right, attend a Memorial Day
wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington,
Va., Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Vice President JD Vance, who spoke before Trump, said the lesson of
all the gravestones is: “We must be cautious in sending our people
to war.” He urged the crowd to push political leaders to treat the
lives of soldiers as the “most precious resource.”
Later in his remarks, Trump pointed to a “big, big celebration"
coming next year as the U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday, joking
that “in some ways, I'm glad I missed that second term" when he lost
to Joe Biden.
“Because I wouldn’t be president for that,” Trump said, as the crowd
laughed. "In addition, we have the World Cup and we have the
Olympics. Can you imagine? I missed that four years. And now look
what I have, I have everything. Amazing the way things work out.”
Prior to speaking, Trump placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, a somber tradition for U.S. presidents. The president
paused after placing the wreath, then stepped back and saluted
during the playing of taps. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
joined him.
The president began the day with a decidedly different tone.
In a social media message in all capital letters, Trump ranted at
Biden, calling him the “scum" who spent the last four years trying
to destroy the country with radical leftism and who, he said, left
behind an open border.
That was after he posted a separate message proclaiming “HAPPY
MEMORIAL DAY!” Wishing people a happy Memorial Day is regarded as
verboten because the day is considered a somber one to honor
soldiers killed in service.
Vance emphasized as much when he spoke to U.S. Naval Academy
graduates in Annapolis on Friday, when he said that he and Trump
would "lead the most solemn occasion in our nation, Memorial Day at
Arlington Cemetery.
“You will learn as I have that when people say things like ‘Happy
Memorial Day,’ you appreciate the sentiment behind it but know that
it’s wrong because Memorial Day is not a happy day,” Vance said last
week. “Memorial Day is not for those who served and came home, it is
for those who served that didn’t.”
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