Former President Trump, along with his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), defended his actions at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.
At a campaign event in Pennsylvania on Friday, Trump addressed concerns that he was seeking publicity during his visit to mark the anniversary of the 2021 Kabul airport attack that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members.
Trump explained that family members of the fallen soldiers had requested his presence at the cemetery.
He noted that after participating in the wreath-laying ceremony, the families also wanted him to join them at the gravesites for photographs.
“I wasn’t doing it for publicity. I get a lot of publicity,” Trump remarked. “I would like to get a lot less publicity. I’m the only guy that would hire a public relations agency to get less publicity.”
He further claimed that the suggestion he was using the graves for PR purposes originated from the White House, labeling it a “disgrace” and blaming President Biden for the deaths due to how he fumbled the armed forces withdrawal from Afghanistan.
However, the cemetery confirmed an incident did occur on Monday and a report had been filed.
According to NPR, a cemetery official had a confrontation with Trump campaign staff when they attempted to block the team from recording where the soldiers were buried.
A source said that staff members manhandled the official who tried to keep them out of the area.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that nobody from the campaign got physical and that a private photographer had been approved to be there.
“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” he said in a statement.
“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said the incident “pretty sad” but “not surprising” during an interview on CNN on Wednesday.
After the Harris campaign weighed in, Vance chimed in to defend Trump over the allegations.
“To have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful,” he shot back.
“Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened but wants to yell at Donald Trump for showing up.”
Arlington National Cemetery released a statement of their own. “Federal law bans political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, including photographers, content creators, or any persons attending for a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” they said.
Parents of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, Darrin Hoover, and Kelly Barnett, along with Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole Gee, Misty Rose Fuoco, Gee’s sister, and Cheryl Juels, Gee’s aunt, released a joint statement indicating they had given permission for Trump’s “official videographer and photographer” to be present on Monday.
I have always said that what happened that day in Afghanistan was intended with the goal of getting these weapons into the hands of the terrorists. Biden has close ties to these terrorists close enough that we can safely call him a traitor. He is arming and abetting an enemy of the United States. This includes send taxpayer money to fund the terrorists and Harris is part of this traitorous act. She is as much a traitor as Biden is, perhaps more. There are thousands of these traitors that have been planted in our government. People need to keep that in mind.
Hey Joe, was the ice cream you ate while Trump was honoring our fallen hero’s that you killed, good?