WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s numerous lies on military issues, from claims of delivering historic pay raises to providing brand new ships and planes, do not appear to be working with service members, with polling suggesting he could lose this traditional Republican voting bloc this November. Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads Trump, 41% to 37%, in a survey of more than 1,000 subscribers to the Military Times. Trump held a 20-percentage-point lead over Hillary Clinton in the same poll before the 2016 election. In the recent survey, Trump may even have caught a break because it was taken several weeks before Thursday’s Atlantic magazine article revealed new details of his disdain for those who serve in the military. Trump called service members who get injured or killed “suckers” and “losers,” according to the article, and he called off a planned 2018 visit to a cemetery in France where 1,800 World War I U.S. troops are buried because he didn’t want the rain to ruin his hair. The weak polling numbers for Trump also were recorded despite his repeated claims that he has done more for the military than any previous president. “I’ve done more, I think, than almost anybody to help our military, to get the budgets of our military, to get the pay raises for our military,” Trump said again late Thursday night.
In fact, each one of his claims is at best an exaggeration and at worst a lie. While his total military budgets are larger than those in predecessor Barack Obama’s second term when House Republicans insisted on cutting spending, they are smaller than those in Obama’s first term, after adjusting for inflation. Similarly, the pay raises he brags about are the cost-of-living increases that have been standard for years. “What I hear consistently from military families is that they know it’s all fake. The pay raises were no bigger than any in the past and many families have been pushed out of using military health care facilities so they’re paying copays off post,” said Fred Wellman, a retired Army helicopter pilot with 22 years of service who now works with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “They don’t believe the lies because they are living it every day. You can’t fool people who are living day to day with the truth.” Wellman added that the Atlantic article is likely to erode Trump’s support even further. “I think this one cuts to the core of our values and culture,” he said. “Yeah, there are a lot of loud voices screaming ‘fake news,’ but I am being pummeled with fellow veterans who are outraged. I’ve never seen this much anger before.”
