Lip Reader Tells Us Trump's Salty Two-Word Defense In Viral Losers And Suckers Fight With Biden

One of Donald Trump and Joe Biden's most fiery exchanges during the first presidential debate came when they duked it out over who has the most respect for the troops. Per the agreed-upon roles, both candidate's mics were turned off when it was not their turn to speak, but Trump's lips were still moving when Joe accused him of not showing fallen soldiers the proper reverence. Trump uttered only two words, but they made it clear that he resented what his opponent was saying.

Trump started the tense back-and-forth by saying something that really chapped Joe's hide: "He doesn't care about our veterans," (via CNN). This was a deeply personal attack for Joe because his late son Beau Biden was an Army veteran. The president responded to the low blow by attacking Trump's record on military support, accusing him of refusing to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France where World War I soldiers are buried. This is when Trump's lips briefly moved, and lip-reading expert Nicola Hickling exclusively told Nicki Swift what he said: "Did I?"

"You're sucker and you're the loser"

JOE BIDEN JUST CALLED TRUMP A SUCKER 😭😭pic.twitter.com/hlgzosRzzd

— DramaAlert (@DramaAlert) June 28, 2024

It was seemingly a contemptuous response to Joe's allegation, as Donald is well aware that he didn't visit the cemetery. As Biden continued talking, he also reminded Trump of the reported reason he skipped out on that stop when he was in France. "He said, 'I don't want to go in there because they're a bunch of suckers and losers,'" Biden stated. Their exchange got even more heated from there.

While it was perhaps an argument with Joe Biden over golf that got Donald Trump the most fired up during the debate, Biden was noticeably angry when he reminded his foe about Beau Biden's military service. Further addressing Trump's flippant remarks about fallen soldiers, he said, "My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You're the sucker, you're the loser." Trump's response was to simply dismiss Biden's comments by claiming that the "suckers and losers" quote never left his lips.

The origin of the insolent quote is a 2020 report by The Atlantic. Four sources confirmed to the publication that Trump had decided to cancel a planned trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, but the words they recalled him saying were, "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers." They shared that he used the term "suckers" in a different conversation about fallen marines, which arguably makes it worse — if Trump truly believes that soldiers are always at fault for their own deaths and undeserving of regard because they died in battle, then it's scary to imagine the lives of military personnel being in his hands.

Another person with some heft to his name confirmed that he heard Trump say the remarks in question: former U.S. Marine Corps general John Kelly. Kelly also told CNN about an additional time when Trump scoffed at the sacrifices made by service members.

According to John Kelly, he learned why Donald Trump purportedly has such a problem with people who choose to go into the military. While Kelly was serving as Trump's White House chief of staff, the former president reportedly said, "There is nothing in it for them." Kelly also shared that Trump had zero interest in honoring the heroics of service members who returned from war with life-altering injuries. The retired four-star general described his former boss as "a person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because 'it doesn't look good for me.'"

Other sources said that the optics of posing with certain veterans wasn't Trump's only superficial concern when it came to choosing when and how to demonstrate that the military really does matter to him. According to The Atlantic, the main reason he didn't visit that World War I cemetery in France is because it was raining and he feared that his hair might get messed up. But Trump's terrible hairstyle during the debate proved that it's his own vanity, not a little water, that's to blame for his worst bad hair days. It also sorta looked like a weird helmet, which is the closest he'll ever get to sporting military gear.