Bulwark Takes - Trump Chooses Saudi LIV Golf Over Fallen Troops

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Sam Stein and Ben Parker discuss the dignified transfer of four U.S. troops who died in a NATO training accident in Lithuania. President Trump chose to skip the event, attending a golf-related negotiation and fundraiser instead. Stein and Parker criticize Trump's absence, noting his history of controversial comments about veterans and contrasting his decision with past political responses to similar events. When American Soldiers Were in Trouble, Our Allies Showed Up https://www.thebulwark.com/p/when-american-soldiers-trouble-allies-showed-up-lithuania-europe?utm_source=publication-search Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/ Trump told slain soldier's widow that he "knew what he was getting into," Congresswoman says https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-told-la-david-johnson-widow-that-he-knew-what-he-was-getting-into-congresswoman-says/

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by Ben Parker, one of the great cogs in the machinery over here. We're here to talk about the dignified transfer that is happening, sadly, today, Friday, involving four U.S. troops who died in a training exercise in Lithuania. The reason we're talking about it is that Donald Trump, President of the United States, is not attending. Donald Trump will be down in Florida. He's at his golf club. I believe right now it is reported that he's going to be at an event and trying to, I guess, negotiate a settlement between the PGA Golf and Live Golf to warring factions in the golf wars. He also has a, I believe a fundraiser tonight at Mar-a-Lago, a million dollar per person fundraiser tonight at Mar-a-Lago. And frankly, um, it's kind of repulsive, honestly, uh, from a, from a standpoint of, uh, optics, let's put it that way. Uh, Ben,

let's start with what happened in Lithuania. Cause I don't want that to get lost, um, in our discussion about why Trump is doing what he's doing. You've edited a couple of pieces on this, including one from Mark Hertling, which I recommend that people read, but go through the circumstances in what transpired in this training exercise. Yeah. General Mark Hertling has a piece on the site, recommend everyone read. It goes through the details of exactly what happened. He even has some pictures that people sent him, really worth taking a look at. So we train very often with our allies. They're still our allies, especially in Europe.

This exercise is called Atlantic Resolve. It's designed to show that we are ready and willing to fight with our allies if need be. So this was a unit originally based out of Georgia that had rotated through to do exercises in Lithuania at this training ground. They were three expert mechanics and an artilleryman who had been called in the middle of the night to go fix a broken down truck. Simplest thing in the world happens all the time. They're driving down this road and what looks like a big puddle turns out to be a sinkhole and their recovery vehicle that they're the four of them are in sinks down into this unbelievable mud hole. And all four lost their lives in this training accident. Just a freak thing. And our Polish allies and our Lithuanian allies went through to recover the remains of these four soldiers, who among them have seven children, who will now grow up without fathers.

It's really an incredible story. It's tear-jerking. One of the details he includes is that there was a vigil at the central cathedral in Vilnius, Lithuania. And the president of Lithuania sent a message to the mass they were holding his personal message about the brotherhood of the Lithuanian American people and how close we are. And it almost seems like the president of Lithuania is taking this more seriously than the president of the United States. Yeah. Well, so let's get to Trump then, because there is some history here. In his first presidency, he attended a dignified transfer. He was criticized for it, and as contemporaneous reporting has it, he just decided he was never going to do it again. And I don't think he's attended another one during his first presidency. I believe Mike Pence used to go to them. I'd have to double check on that stuff. But obviously that's, you know, turned over into his second term here, where this is the first time where there will be a dignified transfer at Dover. And he's decided, you know what? I'm just not going to go. And there's a little bit of pressure on him,

a little bit of criticism. Frankly, not that much. I'm kind of curious about it. There's more history here, too. I mean, you remember early in his first term, there was a, I can't remember if it was a Navy SEAL or an Army Ranger, a member of the Special Forces who was killed in Africa in africa i think in

niger yes and he called the widow and said well he knew what he signed up for right right and this is the same guy who called american war dead suckers and losers and when he was a plan planning a military parade he said don't include any wounded veterans because quote no one wants to see that i mean there's a lot of history here it shouldn't be surprising that he doesn't see it as a fitting part of his job. He doesn't want to be around people who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Yeah. I'm reading a piece from the HuffPost in 2020. It says, Bill Owens, the father of William Ryan Owens, refused to shake Trump's hand at a February 1st, 2017 encounter, and then told Trump that he was responsible for his son's death for approving a raid in Yemen without bothering to understand the risks. Quote, he refused to go back for two years.

He was so rattled. An aide said, adding that the main reason Trump had approved the raid just five days after taking office was that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had refused to do so. What's more, Trump made the decision at a social dinner that included his son-in-law on top of Isaac Jared Kushner and then chief strategist Steve Bannon. In this case, though, there's the added sort of optics of the fact that, you know, he's doing this live golf deal. He's at his own club. And then the market, of course, is completely crashing around him because of this trade tariffs regime that he's put in place. And so you have this kind of unsettling image of a president caring more about

golf than these real world moments, kind of a Nero, a little Nero ish. Yeah. Fiddling while Rome burns. And it's, it's not just that he's playing golf. He is helping. Well, we don't know. Just to be clear, he hasn't, he hasn't taken out the sticks yet. I don't know if he's going to go that far. You're right. He might not even play golf. He might be there for the sole purpose of helping the Saudis and his friend, uh, Muhammad bin Salman. He's a sports watch there.

He has a financial stake in live. Just this is the other element of it. Like we get, it's like there's three different layers, maybe four or five. He does have a financial stake in live, live host golf tournaments at his club. So he does have a financial stake in Liv. Liv hosts golf tournaments at his club. So he does have a desire personally to make sure that this goes through. And Liv wants to take over the PGA, right? Or at least displace it. They want an alliance that it's tough to figure out who would run it, but clearly Liv would have some investments and profit from it.

Yeah, they want an alliance kind of like Putin wants an alliance with Ukraine. And Trump's trying to negotiate that too. It's probably going just about as well. Sure. So yeah, this is what's occupying him while he has all these other important things to attend to. I know we do this a lot, but I don't tire doing it. But the whole like, imagine if this happened to another person. It doesn't take that much to imagine another president doing something. Well, it actually does take a lot, but it doesn't take much to imagine how Republicans react if another president did this, because for months, if not years, Joe Biden was ridiculed for going to a dignified chance. We actually went, this was after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and for being caught checking his watch twice. The Republican National Committee hammered him relentlessly for it.

I'll put up a tweet after the fact that they posted where they wondered if he would ever go back to another dignified transfer because it was such a humiliation the first time. And then there's this ad that Donald Trump allies ran in which they spotlighted that moment from Biden at Dover, checking his watch. Take a look. As commander in chief, he always had his soldiers' backs, was always there to support them and their families. He kept his promise to keep them out of endless wars and to never forget about

them after they served. America learned having a weak leader can tragically lead to American deaths, which is why America needs strength now more than ever. I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. Obviously, there's no shame in politics. But it is one of those cases where it's like, imagine if someone else did it. And you don't have to imagine because, first of all, no one else would go and do a live deal during this. But we know that Republicans have been outwardly critical of Democrats for not being properly dignified at the dignified transfer. And yet Trump doesn't even show up. Yeah. And look, I mean, I can see arguments where it would be fine if he didn't want to do this and if he thought you know it's the vice

president can do it the secretary's defense can do it hexeth is gonna do it this time right what it's worth yeah totally fine if and if the president wanted to make that his policy that like it doesn't have to be a presidential duty i don't think that's but it's the fact like oh what what's more important that you're doing but why why yes but let's let's let's untangle that part right it is a presidential duty like that this is i mean it should be frankly this is the highest you know it's one of the highest responsibilities and burdens of the commander-in-chief and if you can't do that i kind of think that that should come with the job but that's just me i don't have strong feelings like i think if the president says like you know i can foresee situations in which he says like i'm engaged in

a different high-level negotiation or i'm right there are other things that are more important that i just have to do right now live the other right exactly for trump the other thing is golf and it's a deal for the saudis right and it's and it it's kind of crazy. It is kind of wild that he's just doing it and he doesn't give a shit. Like he just doesn't, we're in this place where he just doesn't give a shit and there's something to it. It's like, if you just don't give a shit, maybe the laws of political gravity don't apply. Well, that's sort of seems like, yeah, he, he gets people, his, his superpower is that he gets people to hold him to the standards he sets for himself rather than the standards that everyone else has to live by to the standards he sets for himself rather than the

standards that everyone else has to live by. But maybe that's the, maybe that's the future. It's like, if you just act nonchalantly about it, if you just say, I don't give a fuck, then it doesn't really hurt you. Just hurts everyone else. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Cool, Sam. Thanks. Well, I'm just, look, I'm just assessing the landscape. I'm not, I'm not saying I like it. All right, Ben Parker. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. As always, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate that too. Take care.