No president in American history has sunk this low. Donald Trump is now fundraising off the deaths of U.S. soldiers killed in the war with Iran, using an official photo from their dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base on March 7.
As reported by NBC (www.cnbc.com/...), Trump’s Never Surrender PAC sent out an email featuring a black and white image of Trump saluting a flag draped transfer case. The pitch was simple. Donate for access to “private national security briefings” with Trump himself, promising unfiltered updates on threats, borders, and what the campaign calls “deep state sabotage.”
The hypocrisy runs even deeper. In that very photo, Trump kept his white “USA” baseball cap on, the same branded hat he sells for $55 in his online store. While families grieved and military tradition demanded quiet respect, Trump’s political operation turned a sacred moment into a fundraising image.
There is another uncomfortable truth here. These soldiers died in a war of Trump’s choosing. The conflict with Iran was not forced on the United States by an invading army or a sudden attack on American soil. It was the result of decisions made by this president, decisions that placed American service members directly in harm’s way.
And now, instead of showing humility in the face of that sacrifice, Trump’s political machine is using their return home to raise money.
This is not honoring fallen troops. It is exploiting them.
For generations, presidents of both parties understood that certain moments demanded restraint. The return of America’s war dead was one of them. The flag draped casket was never supposed to become campaign imagery.
Donald Trump has erased that boundary.
The soldiers in those caskets gave everything for their country. The least a president can do is treat their sacrifice with dignity.
Instead, Trump saw a fundraising opportunity. And once again, much of the mainstream media will give Trump a pass, normalizing behavior that would have ended any other presidency and allowing the exploitation of America’s war dead to fade into the background of the news cycle.
