Former President Donald Trump insisted in a radio interview on Tuesday that “there was no conflict” between members of his campaign team and an official at Arlington National Cemetery, contradicting his campaign’s previous statements about the episode last week and Army officials’ account.

“If you look at just the records, there was no conflict, there was no fight, there was no anything,” Trump said on Sean Hannity’s radio show. Hours earlier, Trump on his social media site claimed “there was no conflict or ‘fighting’” at the cemetery, calling the story, without evidence, “made up” by the White House.

It was the latest effort by the Trump campaign to defend itself after a physical altercation between a Trump aide and a cemetery official that was set off by the campaign’s defying of a ban on political campaigning at the cemetery in Virginia during Trump’s visit last week.

Army officials said the cemetery employee had been “abruptly pushed aside” by a Trump campaign aide. The Trump campaign has said there was “no physical altercation” but did not deny there was a dispute. Campaign officials also previously attacked and insulted the cemetery official and said they were prepared to release footage of the episode, though the campaign has not yet done so after repeated requests.

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Woman Files Incident Report with Authorities

A woman who works at the cemetery filed an incident report with the military authorities over the altercation. But the woman, who has not been identified but was described as a seasoned official at the cemetery, later declined to press charges. Military officials said she feared retaliation from Trump supporters if her identity became known as part of any formal investigation.

Still, Trump pointed to her lack of a public statement as evidence that the conflict never took place. “Notice that the person representing now doesn’t want to talk,” he said, and added, referring incorrectly to the cemetery official’s gender, “He doesn’t want to speak or talk.”

Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday that “there was no conflict and no fight — just a staffer from the cemetery who tried to block the movement of some individuals.” He added, “From our side, we did not do anything.”

He did not respond directly to a question about whether the campaign planned to release materials that would support its account, saying, “as the Army said, they consider this matter closed.”

Trump campaign officials did not initially deny there had been a dispute. Cheung initially accused the woman of suffering a “mental health episode.” And Chris LaCivita, a top adviser for the Trump campaign, said in his own statement that the cemetery official was a “despicable individual” who was spreading lies and “dishonoring the men and women of our armed forces.”

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Trump has in the past several days tried to draw attention away from the events at the cemetery and toward Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in the turbulent withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Republicans have used to attack the Biden administration over foreign policy.

He has reiterated that he was invited to the cemetery by the families of some of the 13 U.S. troops killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate outside the Kabul airport in 2021.

Harris Criticizes Trump for Politicizing Event

After Harris criticized Trump for politicizing the cemetery, the Trump campaign released a statement signed by family members of seven of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing that said she had “disgracefully twisted” Trump’s visit “into a political ploy.”

The former president and his aides have also given contradictory explanations for why they filmed at the cemetery. Cheung initially said the campaign had permission to take photos and video — a notion that statements by the cemetery and the Army had rejected because that would be prohibited by law.

The Trump campaign then highlighted that some of the family members who had appeared alongside Trump at the cemetery had given the campaign aides permission to film the event themselves — even though the cemetery said officials had repeatedly told the Trump team that it would violate federal law.

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Trump has also repeatedly said that he posed for photos at the graves spontaneously at the request of family members. He brought up the incident at campaign events last week, insisting that he had not been campaigning because “I don’t need the publicity,” which he repeated in the Hannity interview.

“Thank you for saying you wanted me to stand with you at Arlington National Ceremony, and take pictures, that it was your request, not mine, but it was my great honor to do so,” Trump said of the troops’ families in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Michael Gold and Chris Cameron/Erin Schaff
c. 2024 The New York Times Company