On Tuesday, The Atlantic published a piece claiming that during a December 2020 Oval Office meeting, Trump was outraged at the $60,000 cost of the funeral for murdered Army private Vanessa Guillen and issued comments attacking her. Guillen's sister and top officials have refuted The Atlantic's reporting.

20-year-old Guillen, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was killed in April 2020, being bludgeoned to death at Fort Hood and her body being burned and buried in a river bank. Shortly after her death, Trump invited Guillen’s family to the White House. "I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military," Trump told Guillen’s mother. He later said, "If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that. I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you."

In a December 2020 Oval Office meeting regarding a national security issue, Trump asked whether a bill was sent for the funeral. The Atlantic alleged, according to "attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant," that an aide responded a bill was received and the cost was $60,000. "It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f*cking Mexican," The Atlantic quoted Trump as saying. "Don’t pay it."

Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec wrote, "Defense official who was present at the meeting discussing the soldier’s funeral said Trump said ‘nothing of the sort,’ only asked about making sure the funeral was paid for, and that Milley had aides there who may have planted the Atlantic story."

"Wow," Mayra Guillen, the sister of Vanessa, wrote in response to the piece, "I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today."

Trump spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told The Atlantic, "President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election," and provided statements from Kash Patel, who was the former Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, and a spokesman for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the latter of which denied that Trump ordered Meadows not to pay.

Patel said in a statement, "As someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring ‘in the line of duty,’ which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance."

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