Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Friday stood behind his reporting on President Donald Trump's actions concerning veterans, including writing that Trump had called members of the military who have died "losers" or "suckers," and said he believes the president is "genuinely confused" about the concept behind military service.
"I do think these comments are in line with a general and publically stated outlook about the importance of material gain, the importance of not being a loser," said Goldberg on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," adding that he would not have believed it if his sources had told him that Presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush had made similar comments.
"The world is a stark binary for the president," he added. "There are losers and winners and you don't want to get caught on the wrong side of that line...I think the volunteer force in particular kind of confuses him."
In his article, Goldberg writes that Trump did not want to visit a World War I ceremony near Paris during Veterans Day observances in November 2018 because it was raining and he was afraid the storm would mess up his hair, and because the cemetery was "filled with losers."
Trump has strongly denied the claims, saying he believes fallen members of the military are heroes and decrying the Atlantic as a failing publication.
"I thought when he disparaged (Sen.) John McCain in 2015, I thought wrongly that would be the end of his campaign," Goldberg said. "I just found his general attitude toward service very novel, and so I've been listening for several years."
Goldberg also said that there is a "general kind of confusion" that anyone would make the comments that he reported and Trump denied.
"It's so irregular in a country that values veterans, that values service generally, military service in particular. So there's just a general kind of confusion, even more than anger. Disbelief, I would say, in a lot of circles. You've heard people in those same circles talk about it. It was just a task to try to bring this down to concrete details."