Donald Trump backed out of his promise to cover the funeral expenses of a murdered soldier when he was presented with the bill, according to a report published in The Atlantic.
In 2020, Army private Vanessa Guillén, 20, was beaten to death by another soldier and his girlfriend. Guillén’s burnt body was discovered two months later in a shallow grave near Fort Hood base.
In June 2020, Trump invited Guillén’s family to the White House and offered to pay for her funeral.
Guillén’s memorial service was held two weeks after the White House visit.
At an Oval Office meeting in December, less than a month after losing the presidential election, Trump reportedly asked his advisers, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?”
When an aide answered “yes” and told him the cost, Trump got angry.
“It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” Trump said, according to The Atlantic. He then turned to his then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and demanded that the bill not be paid because they were “trying to rip me off.”
The family attorney, told The Atlantic that they sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received from Trump.
The attorney added that the Army covered some of the cost for funeral expenses and the rest was covered by donations.
Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump, said in a statement to the Atlantic that Trump never referred to Guillén as a “f—ing Mexican.”
“President Donald Trump never said that,” he said. “This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.”
Pfeiffer never denied that Trump refused to cover the cost of funeral expenses in his statement.
