The group VoteVets alone raised $3.Three million within the final quarter, $1.5 million of it in September after it launched a web based advert vit
The group VoteVets alone raised $3.Three million within the final quarter, $1.5 million of it in September after it launched a web based advert vital of Mr. Trump that featured the mother and father of troops slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The president’s remarks on Thursday drew rebukes from liberal veterans and their political teams, in addition to from elected Democrats, together with the normally circumspect Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, the rating member of the Senate Armed Companies Committee. “Whether or not he supposed it or not, the president has blamed an occasion with households who misplaced their family members in battle for giving him Covid,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Mr. Reed added: “As a substitute of casting aspersions on the households of the fallen for infecting him, President Trump must be clear about his personal actions, who he met with and when, and launch detailed medical info together with a timeline and do some actual contact tracing to assist cease the unfold. As a substitute, President Trump is continuous his sample of irresponsible conduct.”
Alyssa Farah, a White Home spokeswoman, mentioned Mr. Trump had not been implicating the households. “His level was merely that in the timeframe that he was doubtlessly uncovered,” she mentioned, “there have been numerous completely different venues he’d been at and people that he had interacted with that it might have come from.”
Many senior Pentagon leaders attended the occasion for navy households late final month, and several other friends there have since examined constructive for the coronavirus, together with Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard. The primary woman, Melania Trump, was there and has additionally examined constructive. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, and several other different senior uniformed leaders on the Pentagon are quarantining after interacting with Admiral Ray.
Scrutiny has additionally surrounded a White Home gathering on Sept. 26, a day earlier than the navy occasion, which was held to honor Mr. Trump’s nomination of Decide Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Courtroom. Quite a few Trump aides and several other Republican senators who have been there have since examined constructive, and the White Home has completed little to trace the contacts of attendees.
In an electronic mail on Thursday, Timothy Davis, the president of the Best Generations Basis, a veterans group concerned in organizing the Gold Star occasion on Sept. 27, mentioned that every one attendees had examined damaging beforehand and that every one have been “doing nicely and exhibit no signs of Covid-19.” Mr. Davis mentioned the group had been advised late on Oct. 1 that Mr. Trump had examined constructive, and the households in attendance have been notified the subsequent morning.