Former President Donald Trump honored the 13 service members who died in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal three years ago Monday, joining families 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.
On Aug. 26, 2021, ISIS-K suicide bomber Abdul Rahman al-Logari detonated an explosive vest outside Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate, killing the service members and nearly 200 Afghans.
The White House published separate statements from Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, though the president had no public events scheduled as he spends the week at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Harris also had no public 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.”
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 private event at Arlington 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.
“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.”
“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 directed the botched withdrawal that cost the lives of Americans and our allies,” 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.”
The Gold Star families have spoken to Trump in the past. Several family members, including 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, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, said in Milwaukee.
“He allowed us to grieve. He allowed us to remember our heroes,” she added.
Trump has alleged that the chaotic withdrawal gave the impression of American weakness and emboldened adversaries like Russia 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,” the 78-year-old 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 enraged the Kabul Gold Star families, who told The Post it was more proof of Biden failing to acknowledge their losses.
“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.”
