President Joe Biden will visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery on Sunday, the burial ground for 1,800 US Marines, which Donald Trump famously called “suckers” and “losers” and had refused to honor with a visit in 2018 because it was raining.

Trump, then president, was scheduled to visit the cemetery about 60 miles from Paris but canceled due to rain. He told his then chief of staff John Kelly: “Why would I go to that cemetery? It’s full of losers.” Later on the same trip, he called soldiers who died for their country “suckers.”

Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son, also a Marine, died in Afghanistan, went to the cemetery in Trump’s place. Photos of the visit show no rain fell as he walked among the gravestones.

It is unclear whether Biden will mention Trump’s inability to pay his respects at the cemetery, which largely contains the remains of Marines and Army soldiers killed in the landmark Battle of Belleau Wood, during Biden’s own visit there on Sunday. First World War. The president has been in France since Wednesday for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy that caused the collapse of Nazi Germany.

Yet Biden has been using Trump’s “suckers” and “losers” comments against the coup-attempting former president in campaign appearances for months now, arguing that anyone who believes such a thing has no business being commander in chief.

On January 5, in remarks marking the third anniversary of the Capitol riot, Biden said of Trump’s insults: “How dare he? Who the hell does he think he is?”

“They asked him to visit American graves. He said no.’ He wouldn’t do it. Because they were all ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’” Biden said in a speech four months later in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “I’m not making that up.”

And at a fundraiser in Connecticut last week: “He said they were ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’ ‘Losers’ and ‘suckers.’ Who does he think he is? This man does not deserve to be president, whether I was a candidate or not.”

Trump campaign officials did not respond to questions from HuffPost about Biden’s planned visit.

Trump, for his part, seems to have clearly understood from the start how damaging his lack of respect for American military personnel could be for him.

Two days after refusing to visit Aisne-Marne, Trump did so anyway to post on social media that he wanted to go, but just couldn’t.

“By the way, when the helicopter could not fly to the first cemetery in France due to almost no visibility, I suggested that we drive. The Secret Service said NO, too far from the airport and the big closure of Paris,” he wrote for the first time on November 12, 2018, repeating the false story put out by his press staff.

The Marine 1 helicopter, a Sikorsky VH-3D, can fly even in precipitation and has brought Trump back to the White House from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland several times through light rain and drizzle. Furthermore, Secret Service advance teams always make emergency travel plans in bad weather.

During the 2018 Armistice Day celebration of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, both French President Emmanuel Macron and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Compiègne – as far from Paris as Aisne-Marne – for a ceremony there that same day. afternoon as Trump remained inside the US ambassador’s residence in Paris, tweeting.

However, following critical coverage of the canceled trip to Aisne-Marne, Trump visited the American military cemetery in Suresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, just before leaving France to return to Washington, DC.

And two years later, when the Atlantic published its account of the real reason for skipping Aisne-Marne — including Trump’s comments about “suckers” and “losers,” descriptions it attributed to unnamed sources — Trump followed suit a campaign from Air Force 1 emerges. trip and raged about it for seven minutes to traveling reporters, claiming the article was a complete fabrication.

“If they really exist, if there really are people who would have said that, then they are low-lifes and liars. And I would be willing to swear on everything I never said about our fallen heroes. There is no one who respects them more,” Trump said on the Andrews tarmac.

Kelly publicly stated last year that Trump’s quotes were accurate.

Trump late last month became the first former president to become a convicted felon after a state jury in New York found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying company records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn actor intended to keep her story secret hold. to harm his 2016 presidential campaign.

In addition, he faces both federal and state charges against him for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his actions leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 by a mob of his followers – actions which, had they succeeded, could have effectively ended American democracy.

He also faces a second federal charge for refusing to turn over classified documents he took to his country club in South Florida when he left the White House.

Despite the criminal conviction and outstanding charges against him, Trump will be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate next month in Milwaukee.

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