Trump Reportedly Raged at American Soldier’s Funeral Bill: ‘It Doesn’t Cost 60,000 Bucks to Bury a F*cking Mexican!’
Donald Trump/X
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump went into a rage over the price tag for the funeral of a dead soldier he had pledged to pay for, according to a report published on Tuesday in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg.
Private Vanessa Guillén, a soldier at Fort Hood, was beaten to death by a fellow soldier and his girlfriend in April 2020. The girlfriend burned Guillén’s body, which was discovered buried near the base two months later. Trump invited Guillén’s family to the White House and pledged to personally help them with the costs.
“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.”
The family’s attorney responded that the government would foot the bill.
That’s good,” Trump replied. “If you need help, I’ll help you out.”
The Atlantic noted that a memorial service for Guillén was held two weeks after the meeting, followed by a funeral and burial.
Five months later, the U.S. Army concluded there were several “leadership failures” at Fort Hood, which had been a tough assignment for women soldiers. The report irked Trump, who was miffed by the punishments doled out to the base’s leadership. Then, less than a month after losing the presidential election, Trump asked how much Guillén’s funeral cost:
In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, “Mark Esper has been terminated”), was in attendance, along with Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel. 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. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston.
Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump, denied the former president made the comments.
“President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.”
After contacting Pfeiffer for comment, Goldberg received an email from the Guillén family’s attorney:
Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra Guillén, Vanessa’s sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. “I am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,” the statement reads. “I witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nation’s heroes’ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.”
Pfeiffer told Goldberg that he did not write the statement for the Guillén family.
After the piece was published, Trump’s former chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows, denied the former president made the comments.
“Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillen or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false,” he said on social media.
Elsewhere in Goldberg’s report, John Kelly, another former chief-of-staff for Trump, confirmed the former president said he wished he had “Hitler’s generals.”
