“In The Daily Beast’s interviews with eleven senior administration officials, Trump aides, Republican operatives, and former and current friends of the president, several of them mounted a curious defense of Trump. Yes, they admitted, the commander in chief at times makes callous, tone-deaf comments about American military personnel behind closed doors. But it’s because he hates the wars they’re forced to fight, not the service members themselves. ‘The president means no disrespect to our troops; it’s just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes,’ one of these sources, a current senior administration official, told The Daily Beast. ‘That’s how he is [when the cameras are off]…It’s his style.'”
“[T]hese sources, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, all independently insisted that Trump was not disrespecting the U.S. war dead: He was merely stating a belief that they should not have been sent overseas to fight and die in these wars in the first place. Each said that the president often has a brash, ill-mannered way of talking that can obscure what they believe to be his intended message, especially in moments when Trump is trying to convey sympathy or empathy” – Daily Beast.