Before the Speechwriters Arrived

What Trump Said This Morning, What He Did at Arlington, and What He Did in 1968

Published May 25, 2026

At 6 o'clock on the morning of Memorial Day 2026, the President of the United States sat down with his phone and posted on Truth Social. "Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year. God Bless those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. I love you all!"

He then attacked fellow Republicans Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Thomas Massie by name, targeting opponents of his latest Iran deal — all before most Gold Star families had finished their morning coffee.

Hours later, at Arlington National Cemetery, a different version of the presidency appeared. Standing before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Trump delivered prepared remarks written for the occasion — the kind of speech every modern president delivers on this day, shaped by speechwriters trained in the language of national mourning. The words were moving: the fallen had left unfillable voids, Gold Star families fight battles long after the victory is won, we will never forget our heroes. The ceremony was solemn. The institution performed as the institution is supposed to perform.

The gap between the 6am Truth Social post and the Arlington remarks was roughly four hours. One was Trump unfiltered — no speechwriter, no protocol, no occasion larger than his own grievances. The other was the presidency performing its traditional role, with Trump as its vehicle. Both were real. The contrast between them is the story. When a president is left alone with his phone before sunrise on Memorial Day, what he reaches for tells you more about him than anything a speechwriter will ever put in his mouth at Arlington.

To understand the full weight of Trump's Memorial Day, you have to go back to 1968, when Donald Trump was 22 years old, stood 6 feet 2 inches with an athletic build, played football, tennis, and squash, and was taking up golf. His medical history was unblemished aside from a routine appendectomy at age 10. The United States was inducting approximately 300,000 men into military service that year, sending them to Vietnam. Trump received his fifth and final draft deferment — a medical exemption for bone spurs in both heels — and was classified 1-Y, disqualified from service except in a time of war or national emergency. He had already received four student deferments while attending college. In 1972 he was reclassified 4-F — not qualified for military service at all.

The bone spur diagnosis has been disputed by people with direct knowledge of it. The daughters of the podiatrist who made the diagnosis told the New York Times their father diagnosed Trump with bone spurs as a favor to Fred Trump, who was his landlord. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified under oath before Congress that Trump acknowledged to advisors he had fabricated the injury. "Trump claimed his deferment was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery," Cohen told the House Oversight Committee. He recounted Trump saying plainly: "You think I'm stupid? I wasn't going to Vietnam."

While Trump was receiving his fifth deferment, John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton. The Navy pilot had been shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war, enduring torture that left him with permanent physical disabilities. His captors offered him early release. He refused, unwilling to accept preferential treatment over men who had been imprisoned longer. He came home broken in body and unbroken in character.

In 2015, during the Republican primary, Trump said of McCain: "He's not a war hero. I like people who weren't captured." The crowd laughed. McCain, two years before his death from brain cancer, responded with a precision that has never been surpassed. Speaking publicly about the Vietnam draft, he said: "One aspect of the conflict that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest-income level of America, and the highest-income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur. That is wrong. That is wrong. If we are going to ask every American to serve, every American should serve."

He did not say Trump's name. He did not need to.

In 2019, asked by British broadcaster Piers Morgan whether he wished he could have served in Vietnam, Trump said he would have been happy and honored to serve. He was never a fan of the war, he said, but would have proudly gone if called. He had received draft number 356 out of 365 in the lottery — a number that was never reached. The campaign had made this point before, as if the lottery outcome retroactively validated five prior deferments obtained before the lottery was even held.

The record is not complicated. Five deferments. Four for education. One for a medical condition that his own lawyer testified was fabricated, that the diagnosing doctor's daughters said was a favor, and that Trump himself could not remember which heel had been affected when asked during the 2016 campaign. An athletic 22-year-old who played multiple sports and whose only prior medical issue was a childhood appendectomy was found unfit for military service at the height of the Vietnam War. He went on to build skyscrapers, host a television show, and become President of the United States — a commander-in-chief who has sent American forces into combat in Iran, maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports, and presided over the deaths of American service members in a war now in its fourth month.

This morning he told the Dumocrats they disrespect the military. This afternoon he laid a wreath at Arlington. Both happened on the same day, by the same man, in the same America.

John McCain is buried at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland. He chose that location over Arlington specifically because he wanted to rest among his Naval Academy classmates rather than in a place of presidential ceremony. He was buried on September 2, 2018. Donald Trump was not invited to the funeral. At the family's request, he was asked to stay away.

To understand how far outside the norm this morning's 6am post sits, it helps to look at how other presidents have used Memorial Day.

George W. Bush, who also did not serve in combat — he flew with the Texas Air National Guard and whose attendance record during that service was itself disputed — nonetheless treated Memorial Day with consistent solemnity throughout his presidency. Speaking at Arlington in 2008 he said: "The men and women we honor today gave their lives for something greater than themselves. We owe them a debt that can never be repaid — only remembered and honored." No attacks on political opponents. No partisan messaging. The day was used for its stated purpose.

Barack Obama, who also did not serve in the military, treated the occasion with similar restraint. At Arlington in 2016 he said: "The Americans who rest here, and their families — the best of us, those from whom we asked everything — ask of us today only one thing in return: that we remember them." He spoke for nearly twenty minutes about individual service members by name, their lives, their families, and what their sacrifice meant. No Democrats were mentioned. No Republicans were attacked. The occasion was the occasion.

Joe Biden, whose son Beau served in the Delaware Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq, consistently used Memorial Day to speak about the specific human cost of military service. "We have only one truly sacred obligation as a nation," he said in 2023, "to prepare those we send into harm's way and to care for their families when they come home — and to never forget those who never came home at all." No political enemies. No social media provocations. The dead were the subject.

The tradition of keeping Memorial Day above partisan politics is not a written law. It is a norm — the kind that holds because every occupant of the office before this one understood that some days belong to the fallen and not to the living's grievances. The 6am Truth Social post attacking Dumocrats on the morning of Memorial Day is not a violation of a statute. It is a violation of the basic understanding that the commander-in-chief, whatever his politics, sets down his political weapons on the day the country honors those who gave everything in service to it.

Trump set them down at Arlington. He picked them up again at 6am, before most Gold Star families had eaten breakfast.

The contrast does not need to be argued. It only needs to be stated.

Sources: Selective Service records obtained by The Smoking Gun via National Archives; New York Times reporting on bone spur diagnosis and podiatrist's daughters, December 2018; Michael Cohen congressional testimony, House Oversight Committee, February 27, 2019; John McCain C-SPAN interview, October 2017; Trump Truth Social posts, May 25, 2026; Trump Arlington National Cemetery remarks transcript, May 25, 2026; CBS News Trump-Piers Morgan interview, June 2019.