In visit to military cemetery in France, Biden attempts to draw contrast with Trump

PARIS — Not once in his trip to France did President Joe Biden speak Donald Trump’s name.

Standing near the gravesites of American soldiers killed in two world wars, Biden shied from overt references to his Republican rival or the presidential campaign back home.

Yet in some sense, Trump figured in virtually all of Biden’s remarks during his five-day visit. At every turn, Biden implicitly denounced Trump’s quasi-isolationist foreign policy outlook as the antithesis of what’s needed to fend off autocratic leaders that threaten democratic states.

The trip culminated in Biden’s visit Sunday to a military cemetery that is rich in political symbolism. Located about an hour from Paris, Aisne-Marne American cemetery is the burial ground for 2,289 Americans who died in World War I.

Trump avoided the cemetery when he was in France six years ago to mark the 100th anniversary of the war. His aides have cited weather conditions as the reason he didn’t show.

But John Kelly, who was Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, has since given a statement confirming a report in The Atlantic in 2020 that Trump called the war dead “losers” and didn’t want to visit the burial ground.

(Trump has denied making the comment. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager called the report “fake and thoroughly debunked,” while adding, “The fact remains that severe weather conditions on that day prevented the safe transportation of the president and guests to the cemetery, and he participated in a ceremony at the Suresnes American Cemetery the next day.”)

The American Battle Monuments Commission runs 12 different cemeteries in France, according to its website. Why did Biden choose the very one that Trump skipped?

He told reporters