President Donald Trump will skip the dignified transfer of the bodies of four American troops who tragically died during a military training exercise in Lithuania, with Pete Hegseth set to attend.
In a statement on Friday, ahead of the soldiers' return, Karoline Leavitt told Newsweek: "The Secretary of Defense will represent the Administration at the dignified transfer for the four brave U.S. service members who tragically died during a training exercise in Lithuania."
Trump is at his private club in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. He is scheduled to attend a candlelit dinner for MAGA Inc., an allied political organization, on Friday evening. He spent Thursday in Miami at a different one of his golf courses, where he attended a Saudi-funded tournament.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to partake in the ceremony instead, the Department of Defense confirmed.
Lithuania's president held a ceremony honoring the fallen soldiers who drowned in a peat bog after their tactical vehicle went missing about a week ago. Lithuanian, Polish, and U.S. soldiers and rescue teams searched through forests and swamps at the Gen. Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in Pabradė, which is about 6 miles west of the country's border with Belarus.
The four soldiers, Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28; Jose Duenez Jr., 25; Edvin F. Franco, 25; and Dante D. Taitano, 21, were all part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.
The dignified transfer is considered a grave tradition in the U.S. military, where the commander-in-chief has the opportunity to publicly honor the fallen service members and offer condolences to their families.
According to the U.S. Air Force website, "The dignified transfer is not a ceremony; rather, it is a solemn movement of the transfer case by a carry team composed of military personnel from the fallen member's respective service."
It added that the former Defense Secretary in 2009 changed a policy where, if the family of a fallen service member consents, the media can cover the dignified transfer.
Trump has usually avoided such events. According to a 2020 Huffpost report, a White House official alleged that Trump was present at only four of the 96 dignified transfers during his first term after being "rattled" by an encounter with the reported family member of a slain serviceman at the Dover Air Force Base.
Bill Owens, the father of William “Ryan” Owens, a slain Navy SEAL, refused to shake the president's hand during his first term, blaming him for his son's death in a disastrous Yemen raid, Huffpost said.
"He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled," the anonymous White House official had told Huffpost, adding that Trump approved the raid just five days into his first term as his predecessor Barack Obama had refused to partake in the operation.
Former President Joe Biden, too, rarely attended dignified transfer. He only attended two ceremonies during his tenure, one in August 2021 after 13 U.S. personnel were killed in a Kabul airport bombing and another in February 2024, where three soldiers were assailed in a Jordan drone strike.
Trump's decision has sparked severe backlash online, especially among Democrats.
"Trump is refusing to go to Dover Air Force Base to meet the coffins of the four US soldiers who died in Lithuania. He's attending a golf dinner reception instead. However, the Lithuanian president found time to meet our soldiers' coffins at his airport," Hillary Clinton wrote on X.
Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, wrote on X, "The remains of four U.S. soldiers return to Dover Air Force Base today, and President Trump couldn't be bothered to be present for it. Instead, he's golfing at Mar-a-Lago. Trump is paying more attention to a Saudi-backed golf tournament than he is to our nation's fallen heroes."