Others Have Politicized Arlington, but Trump’s Approach Has No Precedent

Donald J. Trump isn’t the first candidate to run afoul of the ban on partisan activity in Arlington National Cemetery. But no one else has responded as hostilely as his campaign has.


Federal law prohibits political campaigning on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. Tom Brenner for The New York Times

By Chris Cameron
Chris Cameron was with former President Donald J. Trump when he visited Arlington National Cemetery last week. He reported from Washington.

Sept. 1, 2024
Updated 11:42 a.m. ET

In November 1999, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican and former prisoner of war in Vietnam who was widely considered a military hero, said that his newly launched presidential campaign had made “a very bad mistake.”

Mr. McCain, who at the time was trailing far behind George W. Bush in the race for their party’s nomination, had produced a campaign ad highlighting his career as a Navy pilot and his reverence for his fellow service members. At one moment, the ad showed Mr. McCain walking solemnly through Arlington National Cemetery.

The Army soon said that Mr. McCain’s campaign had never requested permission to film in the cemetery. Even if it had, an Army spokesman said at the time, the request would have been denied because partisan activity is banned at Army installations. A campaign spokesman said that the clip had come from one of the senator’s periodic visits to the graves of his father and his grandfather.

It was an incident in campaign politics that closely mirrored, before it sharply diverged from, another that took place last week. An Army spokesman said on Thursday that former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign had similarly not been given permission to film in a restricted area of Arlington National Cemetery during Mr. Trump’s visit on Monday — and that it could not have received such permission because it would violate federal law.

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