During a White House meeting with veterans early in his tenure, President Donald Trump ignored or talked over everyone in the meeting to pick a fight about the movie “Apocalypse Now,” according to a Friday Daily Beast report.
The meeting included representatives from groups like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as well as former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, aide Stephen Miller, counselor Kellyanne Conway and former press secretary Sean Spicer.
Trump started normally enough, going around the room to ask for ways he could improve veterans’ services. However, when one representative brought up Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War which has left lasting health problems for soldiers poisoned with it, Trump got off track.
He asked if Agent Orange was “that stuff from that movie.” Though he did not name the film, per the Daily Beast, attendees soon realized he was talking about the Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now.” When the representatives caught on and tried to tell Trump that the film depicts the use of napalm, not Agent Orange, he dug in his heels.
“No, I think it’s that stuff from that movie,” he reportedly kept saying.
He then made everyone in the room voice their opinion on if he was right or not.
When one veteran expressed his dislike of the movie for portraying Vietnam soldiers in a bad light, Trump quipped: “Well, I think you just didn’t like the movie.”
Trump’s quibbling about the movie reportedly ran so long that some representatives did not get time to talk about their issues.
Read the full report here.
