Trump pays tribute to service members killed in Afghanistan pullout on ISIS attack anniversary – while Biden vacations in Delaware
Former President Donald Trump honored the 13 service members who died in the botched Afghanistan withdraꦯwal three years ago Monꩵday, joining families of three of the fallen for a private event at Arlington National Cemetery — while President Biden stayed away from the White House for the second week in a row.
Trump, 78, laid wreaths in honor of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee and Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover as well as Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss — all of whom were killed along♍ with 10 of their military colleagues and nearly 200 Afghans when ISIS-K sui𝐆cide bomber Abdul Rahman al-Logari detonated an explosꦅive vest outside Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate on Aug. 26, 2021.
The former president was also joined by former Marines Tyler Vargas-Andrews and Kelsee Lainhart, both of whom were severely wounded in the Abbey Gate attack. 𒁃Lainhart was left paralyzed by the blast, while Vargas-Andrews lost his left leg and part of his right arm.
“The families were just thrilled that President Trump spent so much time with them,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a veteran of the Afghan war, told The Post, calling it a “difficult but po♌werful morning.”
The White House published separate statements from Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, though the president had no public events scheduled ꦆas he spends the week at his beach house inꦕ Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Harris also had no p𝔍ublic events on her schedule Monday.
“These 13 Americans — and the many more that were wounded — were patriots in the highest sense,” Biden said. “Some were born the year the war in Afghanistan started. Some were on their second or third tour. But all raised their hand to serve a cause greater than themselves — risking their own safety for the safety of their fellow Americans, Allies, and Afghan partners. They embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless. And we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill.”
“As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war,” Harris said Monday. “Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda [sic] and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones. I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people and the homeland.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby indicated that Biden and Harris did not attended the Arlington commemoration because they weren’t invited.
“There are many ways that we as a nation and our leaders can observe the third anniversary of Abbey Gate and Mr. Trump was invited by at least one — I think maybe several — of the families to lay a wreath at Arlington, and that is certainly a way to recognize the sacrifice and the loss,” Kirby said.
“But it was a personal invitation by families,” he added.
“Another way is to continue to work… with might and main every single day to make sure that the families of the fallen and of those who were injured and wounded — not just at Abbey Gate, but over the course of the 20-some odd years that we were in Afghanistan — have the support that they need.”
The Trump team has heavily criticized Biden for how the evacuation was handled — and skewered the president for never honoring with an official ceremony the families of the service members who perished.
The Arlington event was meant to stress Biden’s — and Harris’ — roles in the withdrawal after the veep made a point of agreeing with CNN’s Dana Bash in August 2021 that Harris was the “last person in the room” when the pullout was ordered.
“Today is a solemn day and terrible reminder of the failure of Harris and Biden to protect our standing in the world and the cost of that failure. Harris has proudly declared she was the last person in the room when she and Biden direct💧ed the botched withdrawal that cost the lives of Americans and our a🐼llies,” Trump adviser Brian Hughes told The Post in a statement.
Hughes added that “the message to Americans is they should see the stark contrast of the Trump record to the Harris/Biden record on how we use the nation’s military might in the world.”
Three years after losing their loved ones, many of the Gold Star families are still calling for “accountability” for the attack, enraged that no military or other government officials lost their jobs over the disastrous withdrawal.
Several, including Gee’s mother-in-law Christy Shamblin, took the stage at last month’s Republican National Convention to praise Trump’s response to the tragedy.
“While Joe Biden has refused to recognize their sacrifice, Donald Trump spent six hours in Bedminster with us,” Shamblin said in Milwaukee.
“He allowed us to grieve. He allowed us to remember our heroes,” she added.
During a call held by the Trump campaign Monday afternoon, the mother of Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez asked Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the former president’s running mate, if she and other Gold Star family members could be present when military officials responsible for the tragedy are dismissed.
“We’d like to thank you guys for being there for us and telling us that once you guys get into office, that you’re going to hold these people accountable,” said Alicia Lopez. “We do ask [if we could be in] their presence when you fire these people, because we’ve been dealing with this for three years and we can’t sleep at night not knowing how our children died, or where they died, or where they took their last breath.
“We promise we can sit there on the sofa – we’ll sit there quietly – but we would like to get some accountability and know that people are gone and that it won’t happen to other families,” she added.
“We will make the people who did this face some accountability, face some firings, and we are going to learn why this happened, so at the very least, we could prevent it from happening again,” Vance replied.
“I want Kamala Harris to do better,” Vance added. “And I don’t just want her to do better six months from now, when she gets the next political office she’s running for, I want her to do better right now – because she is the vice president.
“The president is [in Delaware], no one knows who’s leading this country and Kamala Harris could provide these families answers if she was focused on it.”
Trump has alleged that the chaotic withdrawal gave the impression of American weakness and emboldened adversaries like Rus✤sia and Iran.
“This is the third anniversary of the BOTCHED Afghanistan withdrawal, the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country. Gross Incompetence – 13 DEAD American soldiers, hundreds of people wounded and dead, AMERICANS and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT LEFT BEHIND,” he posted on Truth Social on Monday.
“You don’t take our soldiers out first, you take them out LAST, when all else is successfully done. Russia then invaded Ukraine, Israel was attacked, and the USA became, and is, a laughing stock all over the World. THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA REMAINS SILENT IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE WORST ADMINISTRATION IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! MAGA2024.”
During the disastrous June 27 debate that kicked off a nearly monthlong effort to get Biden off the Democratic ticket, the president boldly claimed that he was “the only president this century that doesn’t have any this — this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like [Trump] did.”
The remark enrageﷺd the Kabul Gold Star families, who told The Post it was more proof of Biden failing to acknowledge their loss.
“It took all self-restraint not to put my fist right through my TV,” Mark Schmitz, whose son Marine Cpl. Jared Schmitz was among the fallen 13, told The Post at the time.
“I was beyond ticked off, disrespected,” he said. “That’s all we’ve ever gotten out of this president.”
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
