Speaker Mike Johnson Intervened to Get Trump Into Arlington Cemetery Amidst Scandal: ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ Alleged in Controversy’
Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images file
Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is reportedly at the center of a growing scandal involving former President Donald Trump’s controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery. This visit has sparked a crisis for Trump’s campaign to return to the White House. Federal law prohibits using Arlington, the resting place of 400,000 service members, for political purposes, yet the Trump campaign released videos and photos of the former president participating in a wreath-laying ceremony and posing with his signature “thumbs up” gesture in a highly regulated area. This move was widely condemned.
The U.S. Department of the Army, which oversees Arlington, expressed concern over Trump’s visit, fearing it could be turned into a campaign stop. According to a Washington Post report, “Pentagon officials were deeply concerned about the former president turning the visit into a campaign stop, but they also didn’t want to block him from coming.”
To mitigate the situation, officials set strict guidelines: Trump could attend only in a personal capacity, campaign staff were barred, and no hats, signs, or banners were allowed. Reporters and photographers were permitted at the Tomb of the Unknowns but were kept away from Section 60, where veterans from recent wars are buried. Despite these precautions, some of Trump’s top campaign staff reportedly attended, and several Republican politicians, including Utah Governor Spencer Cox, are now under fire for using a photo from the event in a fundraising email.
A confrontation reportedly occurred when a cemetery official tried to enforce the rules, leading to allegations of verbal and physical assault by Trump’s team. The official, who later filed a report, has declined to press charges, citing fear of retaliation from Trump supporters. A Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the allegations, saying the refusal to press charges “is ridiculous and sounds like someone who has Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The controversy has deepened with reports that Monday’s event “would have not happened without Speaker Johnson,” according to an unnamed source cited by the Daily Caller. Johnson allegedly intervened to allow Trump’s visit, despite Arlington officials’ resistance. A source told the Daily Caller that the cemetery claimed families didn’t want media coverage at Section 60, contradicting the families’ wishes as conveyed by the Trump team.
However, not all families were supportive of Trump’s presence. The New York Times reported that the family of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, a Green Beret who died by suicide after eight combat tours, expressed concern that Trump’s campaign filmed his gravesite without permission. While the Hoover family, whose son was killed in Afghanistan, gave permission, the Marckesano family did not. Despite this, Marckesano’s grave was shown in footage posted on Trump’s TikTok account, sparking further outrage.
