CNN commentator Ana Navarro didn’t hold back when asked about Trump’s racist comments about burying a Latino soldier that were reported in The Atlantic.
This was one of the more disgusting parts of the report, along with Trump saying he needs “the kind of generals that Hitler had.”
After using the family for a photo-op, he backed out on paying for the funeral.
In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.
Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene.
In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”
Months later after being agitated at the outcome of the investigation into the murder, Trump asked about the funeral.
At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?”
According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.
Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”
Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump.
After first weighing in on recently released remarks by Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, and vouching for his integrity, Navarro also had some thoughts about any Republicans still on the fence on who they might vote for, and for any Latinos out there that do not believe Trump despises them.
NAVARRO: I have zero doubt that John Kelly is telling the truth. John Kelly does not lie. He served admirably an honorably for decades and decades. This is a man who we should listen to.
And look, if you are a staunch Trump supporter, it won’t matter to you, but to those Republicans who say they have the greatest respect for the military, to those Republicans who say they are for law and order, they better heed John Kelly’s words and I hope that at least some of them take it seriously and if they are having a hard time marking that ballot for Kamala Harris, that this is something that helps them finally make that decision.
And let me also please talk about this stuff, about what he said about Vanessa Guillen. If you don’t believe that Donald Trump is capable of saying that $60,000, does it cost that much “to bury a fucking Mexican,” then you haven’t been listening to Donald Trump.
You haven’t been listening to the way he talked about judge Curiel as just a Mexican. You haven’t been listening to the way he talked about Mexicans as criminals and rapists. You have forgotten when he said, that people like me come from shit-hole countries.
This is true to form for Donald Trump. So for those Latinos out there who think that when he says racist offensive things, it doesn’t apply to them, you are wrong. And if you are a Latino or an American with Trump amnesia, this should help to cure you.
