Trump’s War With The Army Provides Important PR Lessons
Donald Trump, the former president and convicted felon, is at war with the U.S. Army. But he is not the first sullied politician to do so.
In April, 1954, Sen. Joe McCarthy, the serial fabricator who falsely and repeatedly said that the U.S. State Department was dominated by communists, decided to attack the Army “as soft on communism,” after the Army refused the senator’s request to give special treatment to an aide of his who had been drafted.
Upset that the Army refused his request, McCarthy, chairman of the Government Operations Committee in the Senate, opened televised hearings into his charges against the Army. Doing so led to his downfall, when during the hearings, McCarthy attacked an associate of the Army’s chief counsel, Joseph Welch, who softly said, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” That statement was the beginning of the end of McCarthy, who eventually was censored by the Senate.
Now, 70 years later Donald Trump, the former president and convicted felon, kept an incident of his staff breaking rules prohibiting political activity at Arlington National Cemetery alive. .
What happened was that after Trump laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Trump and members of his team moved to Section 60, where the cemetery's public affairs director tried to stop them from filming because of rules prohibiting anything political at the cemetery.
The Army defended the individual who tried to uphold the rules and said an aide to Mr. Trump had "abruptly pushed aside" an Arlington National Cemetery employee who had sought to enforce restrictions on taking photos and video for political purposes.
After the incident was reported nationally, a Trump team member said that the official who sought to uphold the law had a mental condition, adding fire to the situation.
Instead of letting the situation fade away after the Army said it considered the incident closed, Mr. Trump kept it alive by saying, according to a story in the New York Times, “Speaking at a campaign rally in Michigan on Thursday, Mr. Trump instead suggested he had posed for photos at the graves for a spontaneous request by the families of the troops buried there.
“Last night I read that I was using the site to politic,” Mr. Trump said of his visit to Arlington. “They say I was campaigning. I don’t need — the one thing I get is plenty of publicity. I don’t need that. I don’t need the publicity.
Many individual veterans, including a retired three star general and veteran organizations criticized Mr. Trump for using the cemetery for political purposes, which the former president certainly did when Trump’s campaign posted a video on TikTok, overlaid with Trump’s narration: “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months. And then they”—the Biden administration—“took over, that disaster of leaving Afghanistan.” In addition to breaking the law forbidding Arlington National Cemetery to be used for political purposes, the narration was a lie; (what’s new?) a number of U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan while Trump was president.
Among the veteran organizations that criticized the former president were the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, and VoteVets.
In addition several members of Congress condemned Trump’s actions as did Mark Espier, the former Secretary of Defense in Trump’s cabinet.
Mr. Trump’s campaign continued to break the law by posting other photos of the convicted felon at the cemetery.
The incident also resulted in reporting about the former president’s long history of denigrating those who served in the military, including the five deferments he received to avoid being drafted
During his 2016 campaign, he demeaned Sen. John McCain for being captured during the Viet Nam war. “He was a war hero because he was captured," Trump said. "I like people who weren't captured." He downplayed the value of soldiers who received the Medal of Honor by saying, “he'd “rather get” the Medal of Freedom because the Medal of Honor recipients, oftentimes they've suffered greatly, right? They've suffered greatly or they're not around."
He referred to Americans killed in World War I as “suckers” and “losers" according to his former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired general. Trump denied saying that, but his history includes a litany of making statements that he later denied making.
On Aug. 31, Vice President Kamala Harris gave her first public statement about the incident saying, "This is nothing new from Donald Trump.” "This is a man who has called our fallen service members 'suckers' and 'losers' and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients. A man who, during a previous visit to the cemetery, reportedly said of fallen service members, 'I don't get it. What was in it for them?' This is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to him."
The political fallout over the incident is yet to be determined. But the response by the former president, his staff and his running mate JD Vance – who said Vice President Kamala Harris can “go to hell” after she criticized Mr. Trump’s actions at the cemetery – has thus far not been favorable to the former president.
To use a tennis terminology, it was an “unforced error” by the former president. The Trump team has launched an offensive attacking Ms. Harris for criticizing Team Trump for their actions at Arlington National Cemetery to no avail. The more they attempt to defend their actions, the more it keeps the incident in the news in an unfavorable light. To use another tennis term, “advantage” Harris – Big Advantage. And to use a marketing phrase, this incident has a “long shelf life” – Very Long.
For years, I’ve been advising PR practitioners that in certain crisis situations the best PR tactic is often to say nothing and see if it disappears after a day or two. This was one of those situations. Mr. Trump and his colleagues did the opposite and elevated what might have been a one or two
day story into a major one that will live throughout the election. It also brought the incident to the attention of people who weren’t aware of what happened.
As I write this on September 3, Trump’s war with the Army is in its second week. The actions of Mr. Trump, his team and supporters are a prime example of keeping a PR crisis in the news.
There are several PR lessons to be learned from the Trump team’s actions
By making a statement after the Army said it considered the incident closed, Mr. Trump, like the CEO’s of Boeing, Wells Fargo, and BP, when they were in a crisis situation, added fuel to the fire, resulting in continuous negative major media news coverage.
Mr. Vance’s use of foul language was certainly a mistake because it provided ammunition for his opponents to portray him as a gross, foul mouthed person that will be used against him throughout his political career.
The incident at Arlington National Cemetery placed Mr. Trump in a no-win situation. He already had the votes of his supporters. His speaking out about the situation wouldn’t take away votes from Ms. Harris. But violating the rules at the resting place for American soldiers certainly can’t put him in a good light with independent voters, many veterans and families of soldiers buried there and at other military cemeteries. A better response would have been to tell his team not to distribute anything to do regarding his visit to Arlington National Cemetery and to issue a statement saying something like “Our intention was to honor our soldiers. We apologize if our intentions were unclear.” That would have put a damper on negative publicity and would have generated positive media coverage.But; of course, he couldn’t say that because his team was posting videos and pictures of him at the cemetery in violation of the military law.
The statements of Mr. Trump and his team regarding the incident at Arlington National Cemetery, and, JD Vance’s barnyard-like comment only made matters worse. This was a situation where the less said, the better.
