Veterans of the Vietnam War just slapped draft-dodging Donald Trump with a lawsuit over his latest vanity project.
White House plans to construct a D.C. arch dedicated to the MAGA leader will block “historically significant reciprocal views” of Arlington National Cemetery and Memorial Bridge, according to a complaint filed with the D.C. District Court on Thursday by a group of U.S. Army and Navy veterans.
They say that “by obstructing the symbolic and inspiring view from Arlington National Cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial,” the planned arch “would dishonor their military and foreign service and the legacy of their comrades and other veterans buried” at the site. The complaint notes it also “would degrade their personal experience when visiting.”
Trump famously avoided the draft during the Vietnam War on five occasions, the last of which owed to a bone spur diagnosis. It’s a condition that normally affects much older people. He was 22 at the time.
The MAGA president also has a long track record of disparaging veterans, once sparking an uproar after reportedly describing them as “losers” and “suckers” in private. He drew backlash for mocking the late Republican senator John McCain for being a prisoner of war, saying, “I like people who were not captured.”
His visit to Arlington National Cemetery in 2024 also infuriated veterans’ groups and families of veterans. Otherwise intended as a solemn tribute to servicemembers killed in a 2021 attack in Kabul, Trump marked the occasion by posing for graveside photos while grinning and giving the thumbs up. Critics said the stunt may have violated federal rules against political activity on cemetery grounds, though no charges were filed.
The lawsuit against Trump’s planned arch—modeled loosely on the “Arc de Triomphe” of Paris fame, which commemorates those who fought and died for France—also landed on the same day the president used a rally appearance in Georgia to propose changing the law to permit awarding himself the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“I’ve given out so many to guys that are seriously brave—I mean, they come in with—the arms are missing, the legs are missing, the stories are so unbelievable,“ Trump said, claiming he’d already once tried to give himself the medal after visiting Iraq during his first term, but was talked out of it by advisers.
”And I said: it’s a little stretch if I gave myself one of them,” he added. “But it’s one of those things—someday I’m going to try."
The Congressional Medal of Honor represents the United States’ highest military honor. Presidents have granted the medal to more than 3,500 people since it was first established in 1861. Every single last one of those recipients had at one time or another served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Trump, who remained confined to a heavily fortified U.S. air base for the entirety of his 2019 trip to Iraq, told the crowds Thursday he had been “extremely brave” during that visit. “I’m going to test the law, I’m going to say… let’s give it a shot,” he went on. “Maybe I’ll win in court after everyone sues me.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on the complaint against its D.C. arch plans, which veterans behind Thursday’s lawsuit further allege are unfolding without due congressional and environmental approval.
The initiative represents only the latest installment in the president’s campaign to reshape the nation’s capital after his own image. Late last year, Trump demolished what was once the East Wing of the White House to make way for a glitzy new ballroom.
He has further renamed the Institute of Peace building as the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace,” and the storied Kennedy Center as the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Critics have noted the latter’s new title implies the 79-year-old president is dead. It remains formally known by its historic name under federal law.
Trump’s wider efforts to enshrine his legacy in architecture now also appear to be expanding across the country. Florida state senators voted Thursday to formally rename Palm Beach Airport as President Donald J. Trump International. Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign that change into law Friday.
Trump, whose family has now trademarked the new name along with others just like it, insists he does not stand to profit from any royalties over the rebrand, and has denied pressuring New York’s Penn State and Washington Dulles International Airport to make similar changes.
He nevertheless remains keenly enthused by a longstanding campaign to have his face added to Mount Rushmore, alongside those of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
Of those other leaders, three served in the military.
