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| - The claim, first published in The Atlantic, originated with anonymous sources, thus Snopes is unable to independently verify its veracity.
On Oct. 22, 2024, the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, published a story that generated controversy because it included several damning but anonymously sourced anecdotes about former U.S. President Donald Trump just two weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
Goldberg's article, which primarily went viral for reporting that Trump had privately wished that he could have "the kind of generals like Hitler had," opened with an anecdote about Trump offering to help pay for the funeral costs of a U.S. female soldier, Vanessa Guillén, who allegedly had been murdered by another soldier at Fort Hood in April 2020, only to angrily reject the bill five months later.
As described in the Atlantic, Trump had initially offered to help with the service, but when he received a bill for $60,000 he became irate, refused to pay, and told an aide, "It doesn't cost 60,000 dollars to bury a [f******] Mexican." Goldberg cited two anonymous sources at the meeting in which this exchange allegedly occurred, as well as written notes taken by an unnamed aide.
Members named in the article as being present at the meeting denied that such an exchange ever happened. The family of the slain soldier also expressed objection to the Atlantic's reporting, suggesting her story had been politicized by Trump's opponents.
On that basis, some conservative outlets described the story as "completely debunked" or false. In this article, Snopes reviews both the claim that Trump refused to pay this soldier's funeral bill as well as the claim that the story had been completely debunked.
Snopes reached out to Goldberg for additional background on The Atlantic's reporting but has not received any comment.
The July 2020 Guillén Family Meeting
On April 22, 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a soldier with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, went missing. Her body was found three months later. According to criminal complaints filed in the Western District of Texas, a fellow soldier killed her and, with an accomplice, disposed of the body.
Prior to her disappearance, Guillén had complained to family members about sexual harassment at Fort Hood but told them she felt uncomfortable reporting it up the chain of command. Her death, Military.com reported, became "a rallying cry to end sexual harassment and assaults in the U.S. military."
Trump invited the Guillén family to the White House. They made the trip on July 30, 2020. Trump appeared with Guillén's sister Mayra, her mother, Guadalupe, and their attorney, Natalie Khawam.
During the course of their conversation, according to a transcript of the event, Trump was shocked to learn that a funeral had not yet occurred due to the ongoing investigation into Guillén's death. He then offered to help with the costs:
THE PRESIDENT: When would you like to have the funeral? When?
MS. MAYRA GUILLÉN: As soon as possible.
THE PRESIDENT: As soon as possible. I agree. As soon as possible with the funeral. We'll make sure — we'll make sure that happens. Okay, please? [...] And if I can help you out with the funeral, I'll help — I'll help you with that.
MS. GUADALUPE GUILLÉN: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: I'll help you out. Financially, I'll help you. [...] If you need help, I'll help you out.
Thanks to outreach from the Guillén family, the "I Am Vanessa Guillén Act," which removed commanders from military sexual assault investigations, was included in the $770 billion National Defense Authorization Act signed into law in December 2021.
The central allegation in The Atlantic regarded comments Trump allegedly made five months later, during a Dec. 4, 2020, meeting in the White House with national security aides.
The December 2020 White House Meeting
Goldberg reported that an unnamed source said Trump had been angered by the severity of criticism leveled in an internal Army investigation into Guillen's death released on Nov. 20, 2020.
"According to a person close to Trump at the time," Goldberg wrote, "the president was agitated by [Secretary of the Army Ryan] McCarthy's comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers."
Against that backdrop, the topic of Guillén's funeral came up at a national security meeting on Dec. 4, 2024. Citing two "two people present at the meeting" and the "contemporaneous notes" of a participant, Goldberg recounted a portion of a national security meeting at the White House in which the topic of the Guillén funeral bill was raised:
In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation [into the institutional failures leading to Guillén's death].
Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense …, was in attendance, along with Miller's chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, "Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?"
According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000. Trump became angry. "It doesn't cost 60,000 bucks to bury a [f******] Mexican!"
He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: "Don't pay it!" Later that day, he was still agitated. "Can you believe it?" he said, according to a witness. "[F******] people, trying to rip me off."
Prior to publication, Goldberg reportedly reached out to the Guillén family attorney, who told him that "no money was ever received by the family from Trump," but that some of the costs were covered by the Army, which had also offered her a plot in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Guillén Family Response
Following publication, the Guillén family strongly objected to The Atlantic's reporting. Mayra Guillén posted on X that The Atlantic had exploited her sister's death for politics:
Wow 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.
The Guillén family's attorney, Natalie Khawam, also objected to The Atlantic's story, alleging that Goldberg had distorted and lied about their conversation. Her comment, posted on X, did not indicate which aspect of the reporting was a lie, nor did it refute Goldberg's reporting that she told him that Trump had not paid the aforementioned bill:
After having dealt with hundreds of reporters in my legal career, this is unfortunately the first time I have to go on record and call out Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic: not only did he misrepresent our conversation but he outright LIED in HIS sensational story.
More importantly, he used and exploited my clients, and Vanessa Guillén's murder… for cheap political gain. I would like to also point out that the timing of this "story" is quite suspicious, as this supposed conversation that Trump had would have occurred over 4 years ago! Why a story about it now?!
As everyone knows, not only did Trump support our military, he also invited my clients to the Oval Office and supported the I Am Vanessa Guillén bill too.
I'm grateful we were successful in getting bipartisan support of the I Am Vanessa Guillén Act, and because of everyone's hard work and efforts our service members now have more protections and rights while serving our country.
A translator present at the meeting echoed this account as well, posting on X that "President Trump was genuinely concerned about Vanessa Guillén and appalled by the tragedy the Guillén Family were enduring."
Crucially, such statements do not address Goldberg's central allegation — that Trump angrily refused to make good on his offer to cover funeral costs. Instead, they attest to the fact that Trump was warm and generous with the Guillén family in their interactions.
As no Guillén family member was present during the December 2020 closed-door national security meeting, these denials cannot speak to the validity of the quotes attributed to Trump by The Atlantic.
The Trump Campaign's Response
In response to Goldberg's reporting, Trump spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer — who was not present at the December meeting — issued a forceful denial.
"President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election." Pfeiffer also forwarded statements from Trump's national security adviser, Kash Patel, and from a spokesperson for former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Patel's statement did not directly deny the allegation regarding Trump's comments during the December meeting and clearly referenced, at least in part, the president's actions at the July meeting, not the December meeting:
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.
Ben Williamson, a spokesperson for Meadows, alleged that Goldberg had not included the substance of Meadows' full denial in his reporting. Meadows, who described the story as "the Atlantic's latest hit piece against President Trump," issued his own statement on X. "Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillen or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false," he posted.
Because the denials from the Guiillen family cannot extend to the content of the December 2020 meeting, the claim reported by Goldberg about Trump's refusal to pay a $60,000 bill ultimately pits the words of two anonymous former Trump officials against the denials of Mark Meadows and Kash Patel.
The Bottom Line
In response to The Atlantic's reporting, the Daily Caller described The Atlantic's claims as false. "The victim's sister and numerous Trump officials," the conservative outlet reported, "have come forward to dispute the story as false." This overstates the case.
Several things can be true at the same time. It can be true that Trump was gracious with the Guillén family, that he aided their efforts to pass the I Am Vanessa Act and that he was able to move the cogs of government forward to give her family some financial relief. It can also be true that the conversation described to Goldberg by two former Trump aides was real, that Trump refused to pay a $60,000 bill, and disparaged Guillén.
The veracity of the former cannot be used as evidence disrproving the latter, however.
The claim that Trump refused to pay for Vanessa Guillén's funeral and made disparaging remarks about that request is unverified — it pits a reader's trust in two anonymous sources against the denials of two long-time Trump allies.
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