A racist comment former President Donald Trump is reported to have made about murdered soldier Vanessa Guillén is drawing backlash from some Hispanics, but it could be tempered by her sister’s support for Trump and the current political divide among Latinos.
The Atlantic magazine reported that Trump, when he was president, complained about the cost of paying for Guillén’s funeral as he had promised her family he would do in a meeting at the White House in July 2020. Citing two unnamed sources who attended a December 2020 meeting and notes from the meeting, when he was told the $60,000 price tag, Trump responded, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f—ing Mexican!” He told his chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, not to pay for it, the magazine reported.
Meadows and Trump campaign spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied he made such a comment, the magazine reported.
Guillén’s sister, Mayra Guillén, who was not at the White House meeting at which Trump is alleged to have made the comment, came to his defense on X.
“Wow. I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics-hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today,” she posted.
Guillén family attorney Natalie Khawam told The Atlantic that a bill was sent to Trump but that the family did not receive money from him and that some costs were covered by the Army, as well as donations. Khawam has condemned the Atlantic story on X, praising the Trump administration for its support of the family.
In an emailed statement, Trump campaign spokesman Alex Pfeiffer said: “President Donald Trump has spent his life caring for America’s military heroes. As President, he kept our troops out of harm’s way, secured the largest pay raise for our troops in a decade, and signed historic VA reforms.” Pfeiffer added that Trump has financially supported veterans and advocated for Kabul Gold Star families, an apparent reference to the families of service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Guillén was brutally murdered in 2020 by a fellow soldier while she was stationed at the Army post then named Fort Hood, now Fort Cavazos, in Texas. She disappeared about two months before her body was found, after families waged public protests with the help of the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights group, which was founded in Texas.
Trump said, “We got a lot of bad genes (immigrants) in our country.”
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