Trump's reported racist insult about Mexican American soldier draws bitter backlash — and staunch denials

A racist comment former President Donald Trump is reported to have made about murdered soldier Vanessa Guillén is drawing backlash from some Hispanics, but it could be tempered by her sister’s support for Trump and the current political divide among Latinos.

The Atlantic magazine reported that Trump, when he was president, complained about the cost of paying for Guillén’s funeral as he had promised her family he would do in a meeting at the White House in July 2020. Citing two unnamed sources who attended a December 2020 meeting and notes from the meeting, when he was told the $60,000 price tag, Trump responded, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f---ing Mexican!” He told his chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, not to pay for it, the magazine reported.

NBC News has not confirmed The Atlantic's reporting.

Meadows and Trump campaign spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied he made such a comment, the magazine reported.

Guillén’s sister, Mayra Guillén, who was not at the White House meeting at which Trump is alleged to have made the comment, came to his defense on X.

“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,” she posted.

Guillén family attorney Natalie Khawam told The Atlantic that a bill was sent to Trump but that the family did not receive money from him and that some costs were covered by the Army, as well as donations. Khawam has condemned the Atlantic story on X, praising the Trump administration for its support of the family.

In an emailed statement, Trump campaign spokesman Alex Pfeiffer said: “President Donald Trump has spent his life caring for America’s military heroes. As President, he kept our troops out of harm’s way, secured the largest pay raise for our troops in a decade, and signed historic VA reforms." Pfeiffer added that Trump has financially supported veterans and advocated for Kabul Gold Star families, an apparent reference to the families of service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Guillén was brutally murdered in 2020 by a fellow soldier while she was stationed at the Army post then named Fort Hood, now Fort Cavazos, in Texas. She disappeared about two months before her body was found, after families waged public protests with the help of the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights group, which was founded in Texas.

Her death sparked demands for change in the military's handling of sexual harassment and assault and its response to and investigation of such complaints. Parts of the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act were included in the Defense Authorization Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, blasted Trump’s comment as reported by The Atlantic, posting the details on X and saying: “Trump has nothing but contempt for Latinos, women, and our service members. This man doesn’t give a damn about us.”

Trump has been criticized for racist comments against people of Mexican descent, as well as other Latinos, both immigrants and those born in the U.S. When he announced his first presidential campaign in 2015, he said that Mexico did not send its best to the U.S. and that those who had come from Mexico were rapists, criminals and people bringing drugs.

Trump questioned U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s ability to do his job without bias because of his Mexican ancestry. Curiel was overseeing the fraud case against Trump University, which was later settled. When he was president, Trump made disparaging statements about Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, saying, "They want everything to be done for them," and he was criticized for the disaster response and for tossing paper towels in a visit to the island after the deadly hurricane.

Trump has expanded Republican support among Hispanic voters this year.

In a recent NBC News poll, about 40% of registered Hispanic voters said they support Trump, while 54% support Vice President Kamala Harris and 6% were unsure or said they would not vote.

Artemio Muniz, chairman of the Federation of Hispanic Republicans, a Texas GOP auxiliary group, said Hispanic voters will weigh the Atlantic report against Mayra Guillén's defense of Trump.

He said Trump showed the family respect by "standing against the military complex" and supporting the Guillén family.

"They didn't want to get to the bottom of the investigation, and President Trump brought awareness to that, and he didn't have to do that," Muniz said.

According to The Atlantic's reporting, Trump questioned the severity of the punishments for Army personnel as a result of the Guillén investigation, which led to 14 leaders' being relieved of duty or suspended.

Jason Villalba, CEO and board chairman of the Texas Hispanic Public Policy Foundation, said that even though the comments “clearly are in alignment with the sort of things he’s said publicly," Trump is not likely to suffer repercussions in the election.

“Vanessa’s parents were immigrants. We know how he feels about people of color, immigrants, Mexican immigrants, undocumented people, so it shouldn’t surprise us that in private that he uses terms like ‘f---ing Mexican,’” said Villalba, who is Mexican American and a former Republican state legislator who calls himself a never-Trumper.

But "if you are a conservative Hispanic and voting for Trump, this kind of rhetoric is already baked into your analysis,” Villalba said.

Dredging up a long history

Trump's comments triggered Latinos who saw them as part of a history of racism that Mexican Americans in the military have long faced. Such incidents played a large role in the early and later civil rights movement for Mexican Americans and other Latinos.

"To have former President Trump saying no f---ing Mexican is worth $60,000, especially a soldier, is probably one of the most horrific attacks on our community and to our soldiers in modern American history,” said former LULAC President Domingo Garcia, chairman of the LULAC Adelante political action committee, which has endorsed Harris.

"We strongly condemn the racist, hate-filled attack on an American soldier and the legacy of Vanessa Guillén," said Garcia, who presided over LULAC when the group led the effort to investigate her death.

LULAC was founded in 1929 in part by World War I veterans who fought the lack of economic and educational opportunities for Mexican Americans even though they had served in the war.

In 1949, a funeral home in Three Rivers, Texas, did not allow its chapel to be used for services for World War II veteran Felix Longoria because “the whites wouldn’t like it.”

The late civil rights leader Hector P. Garcia started another civil rights group, the American GI Forum, after he witnessed the discrimination against Mexican American World War veterans in South Texas.

Both the American GI Forum and LULAC were intent on demonstrating that their members were as American as other people who are not of Mexican descent — and that many of those Mexican American veterans included members of families who were in the U.S. before the country's southern border was even drawn.

But that history is not well known among younger Latinos or those whose U.S. roots are more recent. For some, the discrimination is considered a thing of the past that leftist groups use to push a “victim” ideology among Hispanics.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, who worked closely with the Guillén family to pass the I Am Vanessa Guillén Act, did not address Trump’s comment directly in a statement issued in response to the Atlantic article. She focused on Guillén and the impact of her death on sexual harassment and violence, calling her “an American hero.”

“Today, as we do every day, let’s remember Vanessa for the person she was. She loved her family, her country, and her community,” Garcia said. “Vanessa’s story helped fuel a movement that has made our country and world a better place. She represents the very best of the Mexican American and Latino community.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com