Report: Trump team involved in ‘incident’ with Arlington National Cemetery official

ARLINGTON, Va. (TND) — Members of Donald Trump's campaign team reportedly had to deal with an “incident” during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.

The former president visited the gravesite to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the 13 U.S. soldiers killed in an attack during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan three years ago.

“We can confirm that there was an incident and a report was filed,” a cemetery spokesperson told NPR.

Citing an anonymous source, NPR reported that a cemetery official attempted to prevent Trump's team from filming and taking photographs in Section 60, after which Trump's staff verbally abused the official and pushed him aside.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told X that the team was granted access so that a photographer could be on site.

Cheung also denied the report of a physical altercation and told NPR that the team was prepared to release footage as evidence.

“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” he said. “The fact is that a private photographer was allowed onto the premises and for some reason an unnamed individual, who was obviously suffering from a mental disorder, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony.”

On Truth Social, Trump published a statement from the families of the fallen soldiers expressing their approval of the photographs.

“We had given our consent for President Trump's official videographer and photographer to attend the event to ensure that these sacred moments of remembrance were respectfully captured and that we can preserve these memories forever,” the families said.

Arlington National Cemetery stated that “federal law prohibits political campaign or election activities at Army National Guard military cemeteries,” including photographers and content creators.

It is unclear why Trump's team was allowed to visit the cemetery as part of his election campaign.