President Donald Trump suggested that monetary compensation for victims of contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, hinges on Republicans winning control of Congress, telling a crowd at a Tuesday political rally that outstanding claims would be settled if his party wins the House and Senate in the midterm elections.
Addressing a crowd in Greenville, North Carolina, Trump claimed his administration had already distributed $1 billion in cash settlements to victims of the pollutants. He also pledged to direct the Justice Department to resolve unsettled claims; however, he tied the possibility of future payments to partisan politics.
“If we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished,” Trump said amid a slew of attacks on Democrats. He later added, “If we don’t win, there’s no money. If we do win, you’re getting it.”
Trump also said, “We don’t want to give any [money] to the trial lawyers.”
From the early 1950s to the late 1980s, service members and families drank and used water contaminated with trichloroethylene, a chemical that leaked into the water supplies from a local dry cleaning firm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Underground storage tanks and industrial pollution also contributed, the National Research Council reported. Military authorities were unaware of the pollution until 1982, nearly three decades after it started.
The toxic compound has been linked to a slew of devastating health consequences — including deaths — and led to dozens of lawsuits.
A study released in 2023 found that veterans and family members stationed at the base are 70% more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than other veterans, and those who spent time at the base have linked cancer diagnoses to the exposure.
In 2022, President Joe Biden’s administration passed the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins (PACT) Act, which expanded care for veterans exposed to different toxins and enabled affected individuals to pursue compensation.
In March, the Justice Department pledged to expedite settlements under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, part of the PACT Act.
The U.S. Navy and Department of Justice opened a settlement option for faster payout in 2022, with applicants agreeing to waive litigation.
The Justice Department announced in March that it approved 649 settlement offers totaling $175 million over three weeks for those affected by the contaminated drinking water.
Since the program began, the department said it has approved more than 2,500 offers worth around $706 million. Individual payments range from $100,000 to $550,000.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
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