Donald Trump Skips Dignified Transfer of Fallen Soldiers for Luxury Florida Dinners

After announcing a market-shaking tariff plan in his “Liberation Day” speech on Wednesday, April 2, President Donald Trump headed to Florida for a long weekend.

According to the White House’s official schedule, Trump left Washington at 2 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, en route to the Trump National Doral Miami golf course. He was photographed disembarking Marine One at the course’s ninth hole before attending a dinner for the Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf tour, ahead of their tournament there this weekend.

The president stayed overnight at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach and was at his golf club by 9:45 a.m. on Friday, April 4, according to the schedule. He remained in Florida for the day, ahead of hosting a $1 million-per-head “MAGA Inc.” fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night.

While a golf weekend is not out of the norm for Trump, his schedule on Thursday and Friday drew ire — the timing of his long weekend meant he would not be in attendance at Dover Air Force base on Friday for the dignified transfer of four U.S. Army soldiers who were recently killed during a training exercise in Lithuania.

The soldiers — Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28; Jose Duenez Jr., 25; Edvin F. Franco, 25; and Dante D. Taitano, 21 — went missing on March 25. Their vehicle was discovered in a peat bog the following day, and it took several more days to recover their bodies.

In Trump’s stead, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told multiple outlets that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would attend the dignified transfer in Dover on behalf of the U.S. government.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda honored the fallen soldiers with a public ceremony as their bodies departed the country on April 3.

President Nauseda, first lady Diana Nausediene, Parliament Speaker Saulius Skvernelis, Defence Minister Dovil Sakaliene, U.S. Ambassador Kara C. McDonald and many others stood in respect as the vehicles carrying the soldiers drove through Cathedral Square in the capital city of Vilnius.

“I paid tribute to the four United States soldiers who lost their lives during training exercises in Lithuania,” Nausėda posted alongside a photo of him speaking with Ambassador McDonald. “Americans are our loyal allies and friends. Our nation today expresses its condolences, respect, and gratitude to the entire American people.”

Trump’s absence at the solemn ceremonies on Friday is a carryover issue from his first term. In September 2020, a Huffpost review of Air Force records showed that the president only attended four of the 96 dignified transfers that took place during his first four years in office.

Additionally, a Trump aide told the outlet that the president had avoided traveling to Dover at all for nearly two years straight after he was snubbed by a military parent. 

Bill Owens, the father of slain Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens — who was killed in a controversial raid in Yemen just weeks after Trump first took office — said he didn’t want to meet with the president as his son’s body arrived at Dover.

“[Trump] refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” the aide recalled.

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Former President Joe Biden also did not attend every dignified transfer during his time in the White House. However, in August 2021, when he and wife Jill went to Dover to meet the bodies of 13 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan — after privately meeting with their families — Trump took to Fox News to criticize his behavior and call him a “disgrace.”

“When he kept looking at his watch yesterday at Dover with the parents and spouses of people that were killed, the Marines and the Navy sailor that was killed, and he’s looking at his watch, like, ‘Get me the hell out of here. I want to go home, get me out. I want to go home,’ ” Trump told Fox Business host Stuart Varney. “I mean how many times did he look at his watch?”