President Donald Trump deigned to show up at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer of six U.S. soldiers killed in his illegal war on Iran, but he couldn’t resist wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with a gold text reading “USA.” In fact, during the solemn event, he never took it off.
In case you’re wondering, you can get the hat from Trump’s official store, which makes this not just profoundly disrespectful to the troops but also a shameless way to sling his ugly merchandise.
Even Fox News was aware of what a disgraceful look this was. To hide Trump’s blatant disrespect of fallen soldiers, the conservative network used old footage from December 2025 from a different dignified transfer. That footage did not show Trump in his gaudy hat.
Transfer vans containing the remains of U.S. Army Reserve soldiers Maj. Jeffrey O'Brien, Capt. Cody Khork, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, and Sgt. Declan Coady, who were killed in a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait one day after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran.
After getting caught, Fox tried to pretend this was just an accident … except that the old hat-free footage showed up on “Fox and Friends,” “The Big Weekend Show,” and “Fox News Sunday,” so that claim rings pretty hollow.
It was convenient for Trump to keep his golf cap on during the transfer, however, since he zipped out of Dover and back to Florida to play golf, focusing on what really matters as his ill-conceived war ravages the Middle East.
Though there isn’t etiquette specific to dignified transfers, all guidance for military funerals says civilians should remove their hats. Anyone else doing this at Dover would likely have received a friendly—or perhaps unfriendly—instruction to remove their cap, but who is going to say that to the president?
Trump loves him some campaign hats for official military events. He rocked one of his MAGA hats when he gave the commencement speech at West Point in 2025 as well. Well, why not wear what is basically a campaign hat when Trump treats everything like a campaign event, an opportunity for a stump speech about whatever comes into his rapidly failing brain? Trump told the West Point graduates about how he won swing states in November, how great the economy was when he left office in 2021, and how bad it supposedly is that transgender women play sports.
Of course, Trump’s blatant disrespect for the troops isn’t surprising behavior from the man who blithely said that more troops will likely die before the Iran war ends.
Or from the man who skipped an April 2025 dignified transfer to go to his golf resort for a fancy LIV dinner. LIV, of course, is the Saudi-backed golf league that has a deal with Trump to hold tournaments at his private golf resorts.
President Donald Trump, wearing a similar white golf cap, tees off during the opening ceremony for the Trump International Golf Links near Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2025.
Or the man who, during his first term, told the mother of a fallen soldier that he “must have known what he signed up for.”
Or the man who attacked former Arizona Sen. John McCain, saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.” Bold statement from a guy who scored a convenient bone spurs diagnosis that kept him out of serving in the Vietnam War.
Conservatives are mighty quiet about Trump’s baseball-cap debacle, particularly in contrast to their fury whenever they perceive some non-Republican type is not dressed in a sufficiently respectful fashion. They raged when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn’t wear a suit when meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, and they lost their minds when then-President Barack Obama wore a tan suit for a White House briefing.
Trump has fashion thoughts as well. His current fixation is Florsheim shoes, which he is gifting to world leaders and pushing on Oval Office visitors. Vice President JD Vance has a few pairs. Multiple Cabinet secretaries have pairs, as do White House employees, like communications director Steven Chung.
Fixating on Florsheim is hilarious for Mr. America First. Though the brand is American, its shoes apparently haven’t been manufactured in the U.S. for quite some time. Florsheim’s United States website twists itself in knots to avoid admitting this, but their websites for Canada and Australia reveal that their products are manufactured in Cambodia, China, India, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.
Policing everyone else’s clothing while ignoring when Trump wraps himself in the gaudiest merchandise for the most solemn of occasions is on brand for conservatives, however. Rules simply don’t apply to Trump. They exist only to be deployed as weapons against Democrats and whomever else conservatives currently hate. Call it hats for me, but never for thee.
