Washington During his final full day as president-elect, Donald Trump visited the graves of three American troops who were killed during the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, a tragedy he has long blamed on the Biden administration.
Trump visited the three grave sites and chatted with family members of the slain service heroes while on a tour of Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in the Virginia suburbs on Sunday. On August 26, 2021, all three perished in an attack while attempting to leave Kabul. They were Ryan C. Knauss of the Army and Nicole L. Gee and Darin T. Hoover of the Marine Corps.
Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan drawdown has drawn harsh criticism from Trump, who will take the oath of office for a second term on Monday at noon. He has called it the most shameful day in our nation’s history and a humiliation. He has developed contacts with some of those families since the Kabul bombing, including during the campaign, and his decision to visit those specific grave sites may indicate he intends to maintain the focus on the Afghanistan pullout under Biden.
According to an NBC News story following Trump’s victory in November, his transition team was assembling a list of senior current and former military leaders who participated in the drawdown and researching the possibility of court-martialing them.
Biden has maintained his stance on ending the Afghanistan War, which has lasted for 20 years. Biden’s options were severely limited by the first Trump administration, according to a 2023 National Security Council study.
According to the story, Trump and the Taliban came to an agreement wherein the United States would remove all of its troops from Afghanistan by the spring of 2021, when Biden would be in office and Trump would no longer be there.
Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to start his visit to the cemetery, which he made despite the chilly weather. After laying the wreath and saluting, he stood silently in the cold, wearing gloves and a dark jacket. Alongside Trump, JD Vance, the vice president-elect, and two individuals who had lost family members in battle rose and made vows.
Trump’s wife Melania and his four children—Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and Tiffany—were watching from afar. A number of Trump Cabinet members also attended, including his nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth; his choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and his candidate for secretary of state-designate, Marco Rubio.
Trump got into a fight with a cemetery employee on his most recent visit. On August 26, the third anniversary of the Kabul attack that claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members, he participated in a wreath-laying ceremony. He then proceeded to Section 60, which is the burial place for certain service members who were slain in Afghanistan and Iraq.
According to NPR, an altercation broke out when a cemetery employee attempted to prevent two members of Trump’s entourage from filming at the location.
According to Trump’s campaign, Gold Star families of troops killed in the attack invited him to the cemetery and allowed him to bring a photographer.
In a later statement, the Army claimed that a Trump adviser had shoved aside a cemetery worker who had attempted to impose photo limits and justified the unnamed worker’s behavior.