As Donald Trump’s campaign came under fire this week over an incident
at a ceremony honoring the victims of a 2021 terrorist attack in
Afghanistan, Republican lawmakers worked to shift focus away from the
former president and onto the White House.
Monday marked the third
anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, an ISIS-claimed attack near
Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport which killed 13 U.S.
servicemembers and as many as 170 Afghan civilians. Republicans have
long held up the Abbey Gate attack as the defining moment in a botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which they blame squarely on President Joe Biden.
To
mark the date, and presumably to position himself against the Biden
administration, Trump on Monday attended a wreath-laying ceremony at
Arlington National Cemetery. He then visited the cemetery’s Section 60,
where many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried.
But things took a turn when cemetery staff got into an altercation with members of Trump’s campaign team. NPR first reported
Tuesday that a national cemetery official tried to stop the former
president’s staff from filming and taking photographs inside Section 60.
The
Trump campaign on Tuesday posted a TikTok video featuring scenes from
the wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
as well as a clip of the candidate standing in front of the gravesite
of an Abbey Gate victim.
Federal law prohibits political candidates or politicians from using Arlington National Cemetery for campaign purposes.
In
a statement provided to Courthouse News on Thursday, a spokesperson for
the U.S. Army said that participants in Monday’s ceremony had been made
aware of federal law, Army regulations and Defense Department policy
which “clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
The
cemetery employee who tried to keep the Trump campaign from producing
campaign content was “abruptly pushed aside,” the spokesperson said,
adding that the incident was reported to police at the nearby Joint Base
Myer Henderson-Hall — but that the employee did not press charges and
the Army considers the matter closed.
“This incident was
unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the [Arlington National
Cemetery] employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked,”
the Army spokesperson added. This appeared to be a response to comments
from at least one Trump campaign surrogate who told NPR this week that
the cemetery official was “suffering from a mental health episode.”
Democrats
have pounced on the incident. Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly
has called on Arlington National Cemetery to release a full report and
California Representative Eric Swalwell wrote on X on Thursday afternoon
that he was “siding with the Army.”
But Republicans have been
largely dismissive, seeking to push the conversation back to the
original purpose of Trump’s Arlington visit — to call attention to the
Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The media is
spending more time and energy attacking President Trump for being at
Arlington National Cemetery with Gold Star families than attacking the
two nitwit politicians … who made them Gold Star families in the first
place,” said Florida Representative Brian Mast, referring to President
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a video message posted
to X Thursday, Mast added that the former president had been at
Arlington to memorialize “the most avoidable deaths” of the Afghan war.
“Donald
Trump could have been anywhere in the country, anywhere on the globe,”
said the Florida Republican. “He chose to be at Arlington National
Cemetery with veterans and Gold Star families memorializing those that
we lost.”
Mast questioned why Biden and Harris hadn’t been at the
memorial. It’s unclear whether they were invited to attend — Trump was
the only president, current or former, who was at Monday’s wreath-laying
ceremony.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a former Army officer,
argued that the altercation between Trump staffers and cemetery
officials shouldn’t rank as a scandal.
“The scandal is Biden and
Kamala sent those heroes into a needlessly dangerous situation,” Cotton
wrote on X of the servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate. “And Kamala
doesn’t have the decency to call their families and thank them for their
sacrifice.”
Other Republican lawmakers were mum on the incident.
Michigan Representative John James, a West Point graduate and Army
veteran, did not return a request for comment.
Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, a 28-year Navy veteran, also did not return a request for comment.
The Gold Star families present at this week’s ceremony
also defended Trump, writing in a statement Tuesday that they had given
the campaign’s official videographer and photographer permission to
attend.
And the Trump campaign remained unrepentant Thursday, even
as the Army chimed in on behalf of the Arlington cemetery official
who’d been manhandled by campaign staffers.
“This is so obvious,”
wrote Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance. “This entire scandal
is so fake. Fake Kamala attacking [Trump] for honoring those who died
instead of firing the people responsible for their deaths.”
Senior
Trump adviser Chris LaCivita, meanwhile, took a shot at the Army on
Thursday, reposting to X a clip he took of the former president at
Monday’s wreath-laying ceremony. LaCivita joked that he was “hoping to
trigger the hacks” at the Department of the Army, tagging Secretary
Christine Wormuth.