Extremely conscious of its imminent publication just “two weeks before an election,” Donald Trump‘s spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer objected to reporting in Jeffrey Goldberg’s bombshell account of Trump’s history of interaction with — and sentiments about — the U.S. military and its servicemembers.
“President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.”
That’s Pfeiffer responding to Goldberg when asked about a statement the former President reportedly made questioning the costs of the funeral for Vanessa Guillén, the 20-year-old Army private who was beaten to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood in 2021.
The Trump statement Pfeiffer so vehemently denies?
Trump is reported to have screamed, upon receiving the funeral bill, that “it doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a [expletive] Mexican!” (More than one witness said Trump had told the family he would personally help pay the costs of the funeral.)
Pfeiffer’s denial was accompanied by follow-up statements from Trump loyalists Kash Patel and Mark Meadows, both in the room during Trump’s alleged tirade, who also denied hearing it. (Meadows’ denial came through a spokesman.)
“There are many, many people who have heard him say these things” https://t.co/P7wiOslJqB
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 22, 2024
Goldberg’s article — entitled I Need The Kind of Generals Hitler Had, itself another alleged Trump quote — does a deep dive into Trump and the military, a subject the writer says he has long been interested in. (“I’ve been interested in Trump’s understanding of military affairs for nearly a decade,” he writes.)
Addressing the quote in the title, which Goldberg says two people heard, Pfeiffer again denied, writing: “This is absolutely false, President Trump never said this.”
(Pfeiffer isn’t all denials though. Last year Trump told a crowd that a decorated military general once told him: “Sir, I’ve been on the battlefield. Men have gone down on my left and on my right. I stood on hills where soldiers were killed. But I believe the bravest thing I’ve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened.”
(What had happened to trigger Trump’s purported courage was the release of the Access Hollywood tape, with Trump’s boast therein about grabbing unsuspecting women.)
When asked to reveal the name of general who praised Trump so, Pfeiffer replied: “This is a true story and there is no good reason to give the name of an honorable man to The Atlantic so you can smear him.”
Another account Goldberg cites as evidence that Trump perceives the military as a tool of autocratic rule is his alleged response during the George Floyd riots, when he reportedly said, “The Chinese generals would know what to do” — a not so oblique reference to the Chinese military’s treatment of protestors in Tiananmen Square, where in 1989 civil unrest ended in a massacre.
Here again, in parenthesis, Goldberg reports: “(Pfeiffer denied that Trump said this.)”
John Kelly should sit in front of a camera and tell the American people everything he saw while working for Donald Trump. The time to do it is NOW. https://t.co/IfEyuP4Eye
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 22, 2024
Pfeiffer makes his tenth, and final, appearance in Goldberg’s article in response to former Trump administration figure Alyssa Farah Griffin‘s backing of Gen. John Kelly‘s account that Trump denigrated servicemembers, including those who had given their lives for the cause, as “suckers and losers.”
Pfeiffer: “President Trump would never insult our nation’s heroes.”
Pfeiffer, a former producer for Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, is a communications expert brought into the super PAC MAGA Inc when it was established in 2022. He was brought onto the Trump campaign more formally as a Senior Advisor in August, when Trump added seasoned staffers to his team.
Pfeiffer wasn’t always quick to defend the former President and was shown as less forgiving of Trump’s actions in the immediate aftermath of January 6, according to evidence presented in the Dominion voting machines defamation lawsuit against Fox.