The family of a Green Beret buried there expressed concern about videos and photos taken by his grave. And a cemetery employee declined to press charges after an altercation with the Trump team, fearing retribution.
www.nytimes.com
I don't want to be a dick and plagiarize the whole article but essentially what happened was two things.
The family of the Soldiar Trump laid the wreath on had anecdotally given Trump permission to do the photo op.
A supplemental review of the original investigation into the 2021 suicide bombing attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians has reaffirmed the military's findings of
www.defense.gov
I haven't read the whole thing, but it was apparently a suicide bombing that the military fucked up their response in Afghanistan and "something something Biden fault" or whatever. Hence the tiresomely self-involved reason for the visit. Like come on man do you ever do anything just to "be nice"?
Two problems sorta came up.
1. the Photo Op includes the Head stone of a solider who died from PTSD, his family expressly did not want him in the news and is frustrated that Trump was there.
2. Apparently photo-ops in that section of the Arlington cemetery are expressly forbidden and illegal, according to officials. It never occurred to me, but this is a private part of the cemetery meant to respect soldiers privacy. That might actually be true of cemeteries in general cause it's kind of a dick move without permission, but especially at Arlington.
Officials tried to stop him, but he's a former president so in the moment hes a difficult man to physically dissuade. Its not like you can kick him out with out calling the feds and at that point its over. I haven't seen the video but there was confirmed to be a scuffle.
Unfortunately, this whole "disrespecting soldiers" argument is really just performative. Soldiers who think Trumps a coward draft dodger who doesn't know anything about sacrifice will find this appalling. Soldiers like Shawn Ryan, who interviewed Trump this week, have a more squishy idea of what constitutes patriotism and service.