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Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup
Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump looks on during a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on August 26, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia.
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One of two staffers involved in the altercation at Arlington National Cemetery is a deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump’s reelection bid, NPR has learned. The former president insisted this week the incident did not happen, highlighting a growing disconnect between the messaging of the candidate and his campaign. NPR is identifying both staffers after the campaign’s conflicting responses to the incident last week outside Section 60 of the cemetery, where many casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.
Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.
After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.
ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.
The campaign’s conflicting messaging on the incident
After NPR first reported the altercation last week, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said they were “prepared to release footage” of the incident, and attacked the Arlington employee as someone “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” Cheung also said they were granted access to have a photographer present, and pointed to a statement from Gold Star family members that invited Trump to attend the ceremony.
The campaign also released a TikTok video that included video footage from Section 60, including a smiling Trump flashing a thumbs up with family members at the gravesites. But other tombstones are visible in the picture, and at least one family of a fallen Green Beret has confirmed they did not give permission for his grave to be filmed or used in a campaign ad.
The Army released a statement last Thursday acknowledging that a cemetery employee “was abruptly pushed aside” and the campaign was warned ahead of time of the prohibition against photography and political activities at Arlington. The Army said the cemetery employee tried to de-escalate the situation after she was pushed, in hopes of not upsetting the Gold Star families in attendance.
The Army said a police report of the incident was filed, but that the employee had declined to press charges, and that the Army considered the matter closed, but added that “the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked.”
When NPR emailed both Caporale and Picard, Cheung responded, “I see you’ve been emailing some of our team members…As the Army has said, they consider this matter closed. President Trump was there to support the Gold Star families and honor the sacrifices their loved ones made.”
Cheung also included a social media post that shows a Biden campaign ad from 2020 that used images of the then-vice president at the cemetery in 2010.
Neither Cheung, Picard or Caporale responded to emailed requests for comment as of publication time. Reached by phone, Caporale referred questions to Cheung. The Trump campaign has still not followed through on its pledge to release video of the incident, despite repeated requests from NPR.
This week, Trump contradicted his own campaign with a post on Truth Social falsely calling the confrontation a “made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad” that attacked Harris and Biden for not attending the private ceremony.
In an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday, Trump reiterated the false assertion that nothing happened at the cemetery, questioning the motives of the unnamed employee and downplaying the accusations as attacks over “publicity.”
“Do you notice that the person represented now doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to speak or talk?” Trump asked, mislabeling the employee as male. “The nice thing, the beautiful thing, was all the parents and relatives got together and they said ‘That’s a false story, it was totally false.’”
Former President Trump polls well among veterans, and has many vocal supporters with military ties. Some of the family members who invited him to Arlington also spoke at the Republican National Convention, bashing Biden and vocally endorsing Trump.
“Joe Biden may have forgotten that our children died, but we have not forgotten — Donald Trump has not forgotten,” said Cheryl Juels in Milwaukee at the RNC in July. Juels is the aunt of Sgt. Nicole Gee, one of the service members killed at Abbey Gate in 2021, during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.
“Joe Biden owes the men and women that served in Afghanistan a debt of gratitude and an apology. Donald Trump loves this country and will never forget the sacrifice and bravery of our service members,” she added. “Join us in putting him back in the White House.”
But those families do not have the power to suspend the rules at Arlington, where Section 60 is a fresh and on-going memorial to hundreds of recent war dead that, like the rest of the cemetery, is meant to be above politics.
The family of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, a Green Beret who died by suicide after serving multiple combat tours and who is buried in Section 60, said according to their conversations with the cemetery, “the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit.”
“We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that there were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected and treated accordingly,” they said in a statement.
Jimmy McCain, a US Marine whose father was the late senator John McCain, also condemned the visit.
Trump has a history of controversial remarks about the military – he insulted Sen. John McCain for being a prisoner of war. He allegedly called dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers,” and recently stoked controversy for saying civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients are much better than those who received the Medal of Honor — the highest military award in the country, often given posthumously.
Trump’s conflicting messaging on the campaign trail
Former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes part in a town hall moderated by Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity at the New Holland Arena in Harrisburg, Pa. on Wednesday.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
The incident at Arlington National Cemetery is the latest example of conflict between the messaging efforts of Trump’s campaign and the candidate himself since President Biden ended his reelection bid and Vice President Harris became the Democratic nominee.
The campaign’s attempts to use the bombing anniversary to attack Harris over the Afghanistan withdrawal, complete with videos from Gold Star family members blaming the administration for the deaths of their loved ones, has been overshadowed by the politicization of Arlington and its hallowed status.
Last week, both Trump and campaign staff sought to clean up his stance on abortion rights and a ballot measure in his home state of Florida. Trump initially seemed to signal support for the proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and posted that his second term would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”
After backlash from anti-abortion advocates and a statement from the campaign saying that Trump did not say how he would vote on the referendum, Trump eventually told a Fox News reporter he would vote against it.
Trump has also publicly questioned the rules, format and fairness for next week’s debate even as his campaign accepted the conditions and has worked behind the scenes to iron out details.
In a town hall conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity Wednesday, Trump called debate host ABC News “dishonest” and implied without evidence that Harris would get questions in advance.
The debate will be a pivotal moment for Trump to try and regain momentum against Harris, who has erased Trump’s onetime commanding lead in the polls in the seven key battleground states.
In the six weeks since the switch up on the Democratic side of the race, an NPR review of Trump campaign speeches has found the former president struggling to pivot a campaign tailor-made to beat Biden into focus against his new opponent.
The nation’s capital may be the focal point of the 250th Independence Day celebration, but people all across America have plans to mark the occasion, from boisterous public parades to quiet personal reflections on history.
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
As the United States turns 250 years old, Americans across the country are spending the holiday thinking about what the big birthday means to them, with reflections and celebrations as diverse as the nation itself.
NPR’s member station reporters fanned out to collect snapshots of the occasion from sea to shining sea.
In one ‘City of Presidents,’ Main Street is decorated for a party
At least two cities in the U.S.call themselves the “City of Presidents” and Cuba City, in Wisconsin, is one of them, largely due to its patriotic Main Street decorations. Every year from Memorial Day through Veteran’s Day, red, white, and blue shields, one for each U.S. president, are prominently displayed high up on the light poles lining Main Street.
It’s a tradition that began in 1976 to commemorate the country’s bicentennial, says Donna Rogers, who is president of the ongoing project but admitted that when it first started, she wasn’t particularly tuned-in to the display.
“I was raising three little boys and working at John Deere, so I didn’t really pay too much attention to community service at that time,” she said.
Donna Rogers shows off one of Cuba City’s presidential lampposts.
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Susan Bence/WUWM
A few years later, she was tapped to help keep the initiative alive.
When she thinks of the country’s history, she says the signing of the Declaration of Independence and abolition of slavery top her list, plus a current event–
“Of course, now, our nation’s 250th birthday. I think those three would be the three most important things in history to me,” she said, quickly adding “[the] right for women to vote, don’t forget that, right?”
Rogers and Cuba City are pulling out all the stops for the 250th, with a parade and a mac-and-cheese festival, because “that was some of our founding fathers favorite foods, along with turkey and cranberries and other items.”
She laughed and admitted she googled that. True or not, Rogers says they’ll go all-out to celebrate the 250th in her “City of Presidents”.
WUWM’s Susan Bence reported from Cuba City, Wisconsin.
In Georgia, a civics competition inspires hope for future generations
At the Georgia state finals of the National Civics Bee, middle school students were peppered with questions about the U.S. government.
Like this one: why is a single energetic executive desirable?
The answer: it promotes accountability and decisive leadership.
9th grader Ella Hummel got it right.
“I’ve always kind of had the idea of serving in politics,” she said after the competition. “And I really think that civics has opened my mind.”
Ella will advance to the civics bee finals later this fall, with her grandmother, Peggy Farmer, cheering her on. Farmer remembers the excitement around the bicentennial in 1976, but said she feels a different energy around this year’s anniversary.
“It’s a togetherness type of thing that’s really not around all the time now,” she mused. “I think it’s just the world’s changed a lot.”
But there is something Farmer will celebrate about America on this Independence Day: her grandkid, the Georgia Civics Bee Champion.
“Maybe she and the kids that was sitting up there, they can change [the country] a little bit. I mean, they seem to be having a ball with each other up there today, so that’s a good thing.”
GPB’s Sofi Gratas reported from Atlanta.
In Texas, appreciating the process of patriotism
Rodney Ellis, who has served 43 years in public office, is guardedly optimistic that America will stay on a path towards progress.
John Burnett
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John Burnett
Rodney Ellis will celebrate at picnics around his precinct in Houston with barbecue pork ribs and ice tea, and a heaping helping of worry about the nation’s future. The tall, garrulous 72-year-old county commissioner is guardedly patriotic.
“We should be celebrating that America is a process,” he said. “Patriotism is telling the truth, and doin’ the work to repair the harms that have come about over these 250 years.”
The son of a maid and a landscaper, Ellis has served 43 years in public office, first as a Houston city councilman, then state senator, and now as a Harris County commissioner.
Fifty years ago, during the bicentennial, Ellis was a public affairs graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1976, there were 18 Black representatives in Congress; today there are 67.
“We’ve made tremendous progress since then, tremendous gains,” he said. “And so when I compare what was happening then to what’s happening now, I look at how quickly a lot of those fundamental rights, those gains that we’ve taken for granted have rolled back so quickly.”
He ticked off areas where he believes America has lost ground: clean air and clean water, people of color in key positions in government, owning up to uncomfortable U.S. history, and selfless public service.
But, said the commissioner with a broad grin, that’s how it’s always been in America.
“Progress is made but along the way sometimes you take two steps forward and 10 steps back, but you don’t give up.”
John Burnett reported from Houston, TX.
In Milwaukee, Fourth of July tacos with a big helping of pride
Gissell Vera is proud to be both American and Mexican. She plans to celebrate both of her cultures with a Fourth of July carne asada cookout.
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Maayan Silver/WUWM
Gissell Vera ordered carne asada tacos on her favorite patio in Milwaukee, a vibrant spot punctuated with strings of international flags and a steady cumbia drumbeat.
“The music, the colors, the language, all of it is part of me and I am a proud American,” she said.
Vera is a U.S. citizen from a mixed status family; her parents emigrated from Veracruz, Mexico.
“My family has particularly always been grateful for this country and the opportunities that it’s provided us,” said the 25 year-old. “Although there is always the fear and uncertainty of what immigration reform could, how it could impact us, we choose to live every day without fear.”
Vera said there’s a phrase she’s heard many immigrants use to describe their relationship to the United States, “ni de aquí ni de allá,”, meaning ‘neither from here or there.’
“It’s almost like a limbo in which we existed,” she explained. “And I think that now I’m very proud to say that I am ‘de aquí’ and ‘de allá’. So I am proud to be from here and from there.”
She said she’ll join her family for a cookout to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, but instead of hot dogs, they’ll be grilling carne asada.
WUWM’s Maayan Silver reported from Milwaukee.
In the Mountain West, a closer look at a national myth
As America turned 250 this year, historian Megan Kate Nelson used the occasion to take a closer look at a foundational myth of the country’s history and ask, “what stories do we carry forward?”
Her new book ‘The Westerners’ profiled pioneers who, according to Nelson, don’t fit “the narrative of white Easterners moving westward in covered wagons with a nuclear family in tow, engaging with a series of challenges.”
A statue of Sacagawea along the banks of the Missouri River in Great Falls, Mont. Sacajawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman, who accompanied Lewis and Clark as an interpreter and guide. Her role in the expedition is reexamined in Megan Kate Nelson’s book.
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Matt Volz/AP
That includes historical figures like Polly Bemis, who was trafficked from China to the Idaho frontier, and María Gertrudis Barceló, a Santa Fe saloon owner and professional gambler.
Even the well-known figure, Sacagawea, gets another look.
“I read through the Lewis and Clark journals. They mention her more than 150 times, and she is always doing something or saying something,” said Nelson. “My favorite part: when they arrive on the western coast, they set up camp a couple miles away from the ocean, and she yells at William Clark. ‘You are going to take me to go see the ocean! I did not travel all this way not to see the ocean!’”
Nelson said it’s more important than ever to elevate a fuller picture of westward expansion, and to challenge the frontier myth that “there’s only one white pioneer; there’s only one kind of story of American greatness.”
Ryan Warner reported from Crested Butte, Colorado.
In Rhode Island, the parade is nearly as old as the nation itself
Every Independence Day, the yellow stripes dividing Hope Street get a patriotic makeover.
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David Wright/Ocean State Media
The town of Bristol, Rhode Island, lays claim to the nation’s oldest Independence Day celebration. This year, they will celebrate America’s 250th with their 241st birthday bash for the country, an effort that brought together over 100 volunteers as part of the Fourth of July committee.
Plans include a parade with at least 34 floats, a golf tournament, a “Miss Fourth of July” beauty pageant, and a gala ball.
Even the double yellow line down Hope Street got its annual red, white and blue makeover for the parade.
For the past decade, Heidi Vermilyea has been in charge of the parade souvenirs, selling hats, t-shirts, and Christmas tree ornaments out of a blue trailer.
“I think I’ve missed the parade once when I was in Europe for the Fourth of July,” Vermilyea admits. “But otherwise, I have been either watching the parade or working the parade my whole life.”
Even when she’s not working the events, she’s decked out in stars-and-stripes, all the way down to her patriotic pedicure.
Heidi Vermilyea runs the souvenir truck for Bristol’s parade every July 4th. But her American flag outfits are year-round display of her patriotism.
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David Wright/Ocean State Media
“Politics you can be left, right, moderate, whatever,” Vermilyea explains. “Patriotism is just loving your community. Helping out to make your community, your country a better place.”
The way she sees it, she’s flying the flag for Bristol, her family and friends.
This story was reported by Ocean State Media’s David Wright.
In Oregon, grappling with a complicated history
Some of Mitchell S. Jackson’s fondest childhood memories are of the Fourth of July.
“My mother would always buy me an outfit that had a red, white, and blue color scheme,” Jackson, who is now 50 years old, remembered. “And it was joyous, you know, to don those colors.”
But as the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer grew up, he learned more about America’s history of slavery and racism. Jackson said that made his relationship to his country more complicated, especially after he was convicted on drug and weapons charges as a 21-year-old and imprisoned for over a year.
“I lost my right to vote before I ever voted, before it ever dawned on me that my suffrage was important,” remembers Jackson. “And I would say that that is an American project, that a young Black boy loses his right to vote.”
Jackson said these inequalities, both historical and modern, call into question the very anniversary we’re celebrating.
“When I hear 250, I know that that’s a false number, right?”
Mitchell S. Jackson at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. For Jackson, the 250th is not a true celebration of American freedom, since so many people were enslaved at the time.
Erwin JT Trollinger
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Erwin JT Trollinger
Jackson said that to him, true freedom in America only goes back 160 years, to when the 14th amendment granted everyone equal protection under the law. Or even just 62 years to the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed segregation.
“If you love something, you’re also critical of it,” he pointed out. “You don’t just love it blindly, or I hope you don’t just love it blindly. So if you truly love America, then you gotta tell the truth about America.”
Jackson says there are ways for Black Americans to make the Fourth of July, and America itself, their own. But it’s a group project to understand who we are, and who we’ve been, and who we can become.
Deena Prichep reported from Portland, Oregon.
News
Family-owned company prepares to put on the largest fireworks display in history: “It is the biggest show that we’ve ever done”
Washington — There are fireworks, and then there’s what’s in store for Saturday in Washington, D.C.
When the sun goes down on Independence Day, the skies of Washington are expected to fill with a record-setting 850,000 individual fireworks for a 40-minute spectacle like no one has seen before.
A company called Pyrotecnico will attempt the biggest fireworks show in history, using five generations of family know-how and a background in Super Bowls and large musical acts to help America celebrate its 250th birthday with a bang.
“I mean, it is the biggest show that we’ve done,” Rocco Vitale, president of Pyrotecnico, told CBS News. “…My earliest memories of fireworks displays and doing the Fourth of July was here.”
Pyrotecnico has been planning this year’s show since January, using computers to simulate the display. But now it’s time for the real thing.
Vitale gave CBS News an exclusive look at his not-so-secret weapons: eight barges out on the Potomac River, each one ready to light up the night sky.
“Each firing location has a communication device, and its all set on GPS. And once the time of the show is put into the system, it goes at that time,” Vitale explained.
According to Freedom 250, the organizer of the “Salute to America 250 Celebration & Fireworks” on the National Mall, President Trump will deliver remarks at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time, and the fireworks display will get underway at 10:45 p.m. The event is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people.
Join CBS for “The Great American Block Party 250,” a primetime special on Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, featuring live musical performances, celebrations around the country, and the largest fireworks show in history in the skies over the nation’s capital. Tune in July 4 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and stream it on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.
A national physician staffing firm tried to take over the contract held by Eugene Emergency Physicians to work in local hospitals. The local physicians used a new state law to oppose the move.
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In between shifts in the emergency room, Dr. Dan McGee was in an Oregon courtroom. He was fighting for his practice — Eugene Emergency Physicians (EEP). The group of more than 40 doctors and physician assistants work at multiple emergency departments; it was being replaced by a national company.
“This was big time, David and Goliath stuff,” McGee said. “You see 14 of their lawyers sitting there and you see three of ours.”
Those lawyers argued that ApolloMD, the national company, violated Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine law. The 2025 law bans corporations from taking control of a medical practice’s operations and finances.
The case garnered national interest because Oregon’s new law targets the loopholes large staffing firms have been employing to circumvent state corporate medicine laws.
Money for control
Most states have laws requiring that doctors own medical practices, not corporations. These rules aim to put patient interests ahead of profit motives. Over the last several years, companies have used a model where a doctor technically owns the local practice, but as Erin Fuse Brown, a professor at Brown University, explains, those physician owners are often not involved in care and cede hiring, firing and other operational functions to the corporation.
Fuse Brown said these arrangements are attractive to hospitals because these companies often promise more revenue and take over the responsibilities that come with running an ER.
“There’s worry that these investors or these corporate management companies should not be totally controlling the operations and the clinical decisions of those who are trained to deliver patient care,” Fuse Brown said.
The connection to patient care concerned Dr. Jonas Pologe, who works for Eugene Emergency Physicians, in the Eugene, Ore., area. ApolloMD offered local doctors jobs, but Pologe worried that if he pushed back on decisions ApolloMD made, he could lose work hours.
“There’s certainly a chance that if you make enough of a stink, you think that something needs to change, they can just stop giving you shifts,” said Pologe.
ApolloMD’s CEO, Dr. Yogin Patel, said the group doesn’t infringe on the way its doctors practice. He says the company is being unfairly lumped in with broader concerns over physicians’ feelings of disempowerment at the hands of corporate medical takeovers.
A closely watched experiment
Fuse Brown, policy experts and independent physicians theorized that updating state corporate medicine laws could be a fix to limit the control management companies can exert over medical doctors.
Oregon’s the first state to try this, and the case brought by the Eugene doctors group is the first test of that law. McGee, who leads the Eugene physicians group, says colleagues at other hospitals around the state were literally tuning in to their case.
“You could hear it almost like background music on an elevator,” McGee says he was told. “At key moments, all of a sudden the nurses would break out in a cheer.”
Before any ruling, the hospital system dropped its plan to work with ApolloMD and struck a deal to stick with McGee’s local group of doctors.
“This is a big victory for independent physician groups over corporate medicine,” McGee said. “This is a game changer.”
The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) supported the Eugene doctors as part of the organization’s strategy to protect independent practices. The AAEM president, Dr. Vicki Norton, said Oregon has the strongest law in the country.
“This signals that that law works and we need it replicated in other states to really strengthen their corporate practice laws,” said Norton.
California and Vermont have passed similar legislation to Oregon, and lawmakers in other states, including Rhode Island and New Mexico, are considering related bills.
In Virginia, an independent group of ER doctors who were replaced by a large staffing firm is meeting with state legislators to try to change their laws.
Impact on Oregon physicians
Back in Oregon, the open question is about how the law may impact the physician practice market.
A few of the largest companies, Envision Healthcare, TeamHealth and USACS, declined to answer NPR’s questions about whether this case or the new law changed their outlook on investing in Oregon practices.
Opponents of the legislation warned lawmakers that many physician groups depend on outside investment to survive.
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