President Donald Trump is being criticized for his self-congratulatory tone in a Memorial Day tweet in which he said "those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today" and then cited the growing economy and low unemployment.

Trump sent the tweet Monday before heading to Arlington National Cemetery to pay tribute to those who died in service to the U.S.

Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Obama administration, tweeted: "This day, of all days of the year, should not be about any one of us."

John Kirby, a State Department spokesman in the Obama administration, called Trump's tweet "one of the most inappropriate, ignorant and tone-deaf things our Commander-in-Chief could have said on a day like today."