When then-candidate Donald Trump engaged in a war of words with Gold Star father Khizir Khan in 2016, the news media savaged Trump. The Clinton campaign featured Khan at the Democratic National Convention. Many on the center-right, myself included, publicly criticized Trump -- or at least questioned whether that particular battle was a constructive one. Eight years later, multiple Gold Star families are now responding passionately and harshly to a public statement from Kamala Harris, and many journalists who lavished Absolute Moral Authority upon Mr. Khan are either ignoring them or even implying they're liars. This despicable spectacle has been playing out over several days now, following Trump's visit to Arlington Cemetery on the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate terror attack outside Kabul airport during the Biden-Harris administration's chaotic and violent Afghanistan withdrawal.
Some background: The terrorist responsible for that bombing, which murdered 13 American service members, had been freed by fellow terrorists from a prison at an American air base abandoned by Biden and Harris. The administration had also declined a Taliban offer for US troops to secure the country's capital city during the final stages of the pullout. These terrible and fateful decisions directly contributed to the disgraceful confluence of events that characterized the American exit. President Biden had pledged that the withdrawal would be orderly and calm, that terrorists wouldn't take over the country, and that we wouldn't leave Americans or American allies behind. All three promises were utterly shattered. Vice President Kamala Harris has boasted that she was the last person in the room in counseling Biden in favor of this policy, which she fully supported. The official Biden-Harris line is that this blood-stained, enemy-emboldening, ally-alienating disaster constituted an "extraordinary success."
Biden infamously checked his watch during the dignified transfer of the 13 slain soldiers' remains, angering families by invoking his own son, who died of cancer in the United States, not as a result of an attack in war zone. Harris did not attend the ceremony at all (more on that below). Several of these Gold Star families have been publicly critical of Biden and Harris, noting that the people responsible for the decisions that led to their loved ones' deaths wouldn't meet with them in their grief -- and never even said the deceased heroes' names out loud. After three years of neglect, having been treated as if they do not matter or even exist by the ruling party, these families invited former President Trump to Arlington to mark the solemn anniversary. They asked him to listen to their stories and help draw attention to their concerns. When Trump obliged, some in the media and other left-wing activists accused him of 'politicizing' the deadly attack by supposedly using the military burial ground for partisan purposes. They treated images and videos taken by Trump's team as some sort of shabby desecration.
When the families stated that Trump had come at their behest, and that they'd explicitly requested and approved cameras, much of the media just pretended as if these clarifications never happened. But what turned a relatively low-decibel controversy into a full-blown firestorm was Kamala Harris' decision to wade into the morass in order to attack Trump. Keep in mind, this is the woman who signed off on the series of catastrophic choices that got these service members killed. She's the woman who has never given the resulting Gold Star families the time of day. She's the woman who had her team put out a press release on the anniversary of the Abbey Gate bloodbath. And she became the woman who decided to assail Trump for accepting the Gold Star families' invitation to Arlington Cemetery, while she herself was nowhere to be found that day:
As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times. It is a solemn place; a place where we come together to honor American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of this nation.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 31, 2024
It is not a place for politics.
And…
[Arlington Cemetery] is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt...I will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our beloved nation and our cherished freedoms. I mourn them and salute them. And I will never politicize them.
This provoked a furious backlash from the families, who defended Trump and ripped Harris in a series of videos posted to social media. Please take the time to watch these powerful, personal, angry statements:
Here is part of their joint statement:
We, the families of the brave service members who were tragically killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, are appalled by Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent attempts to politicize President Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery. President Trump was invited by us, the Gold Star families, to attend the solemn ceremonies commemorating the three-year anniversary of our children's deaths. He was there to honor their sacrifice, yet Vice President Harris has disgracefully twisted this sacred moment into a political ploy. Vice President Harris bears responsibility for the deaths of our sons and daughters. Her administration’s catastrophic mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal directly led to the murder of 13 service members, including our children. Despite our multiple requests for a meeting to discuss the loss of our loved ones, Vice President Harris has repeatedly ignored us, showing a complete lack of empathy and accountability. This refusal to face the consequences of her administration's decisions is a deep betrayal to us as Gold Star families. President Trump, on the other hand, has been the only Commander-in-Chief to consistently recognize the heroism of our children. His attendance at Arlington was not for political gain but to stand with us, to grieve with us, and to honor the legacy of those who gave everything for this nation.
To extent that these responses are being covered at all, the media is framing the dispute like this:
This is despicable from the @nytimes.
— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) September 1, 2024
The Gold Star families were RESPONDING to Harris.
This is a shocking, insulting outrageous version of “Republicans pounce” framing and it’s disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/bL2jkuXvPm
Harris disrespected and disregarded these people for years, then decided to rub their noses in it for her own political purposes. They responded. Yet the Times frames the families as the partisan aggressors, being 'used' as Trump pawns. Disgusting. CNN is in on the act, too:
Dana Bash asked more follow-up questions about this fake controversy in this one clip than she did in her entire interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. https://t.co/k3E9R0F2V3
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 1, 2024
NBC is amplifying the Biden-Harris White House's suggestion that the Gold Star families are liars:
"Gold Star families are liars" NBC News explained. https://t.co/pTobWnDumG
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 2, 2024
Is this woman lying?
This just makes Kamala Harris look terrible.
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) September 1, 2024
Gold Star Mom: “We invited both President Trump and the administration, and we didn’t hear back from the White House. We were happy to welcome Trump… when he came to Section 60, it was at our request”
pic.twitter.com/hITDiQA28z
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton brutally set the record straight on Meet the Press, eliciting factually false damage control from host Kristen Welker, who wrongly claimed Harris attended the dignified transfer:
One thing I’ll add is that Kristen Welker lied to protect Kamala when Welker claimed “they [Biden & Kamala] did meet with them during the dignified transfer.” While Biden was indeed at the Dover ceremony (where he checked his watch & talked about Beau), Kamala very much was NOT. https://t.co/jEF4qMGtTf
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) September 1, 2024
Meet the Press tweeted out a mealy-mouthed quasi-correction later in the day. As for the physical altercation, which the Army cited in blasting the Trump campaign for the former president's acceptance of the Gold Star families' invitation, it appears as cemetery worker tried to intervene to enforce rules against using the military gravesite for campaign purposes. Team Trump and the Gold Star families who invited Trump say the gathering was neither political nor a campaign event. Perhaps the aides could have avoided the confrontation that unfolded, but it also seems like these guidelines are applied to certain politicians, but not others:
The US Army issued a blistering statement Thursday that claimed the Trump campaign flouted federal laws when he posed for a photo with Gold Star families at Arlington National Cemetery — allegedly leading to a physical altercation between campaign staff and a cemetery employee. Online critics of the Army statement were quick to point out that President Biden had twice used Arlington National Cemetery: Once for a campaign video in June of this year; and once before the 2020 election, which apparently showed him standing over a grave in Section 60 — the same area Trump visited.
Did we see the 'news' media whip themselves into an indignant frenzy when Biden featured Arlington Cemetery in two campaign videos? Did Kamala Harris denounce her running mate for 'disrespecting' the 'sacred' ground in doing so, and slamming it as a "political stunt"? These questions answer themselves. And once again, the Democrat-media outrage chorus is simply discarding the words and feelings of the Gold Star families in all of this:
Gold Star families of the 13 US service members who were killed during the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal released a statement on Wednesday denying that they had trampled on Section 60 regulations, which is the portion of the cemetery reserved for fallen heroes of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars...Darin Hoover, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, one of the three fallen service members buried at the military cemetery, told The Post Wednesday that the Gold Star families had invited Trump for a solemn moment of remembrance, not a campaign event. “We are the ones that invited Trump. He didn’t invite himself,” Hoover said. “We wanted the pictures to memorialize, you know, what President Trump had said and done and … that moment where he’s paying his respects to our children,” Hoover continued.
I'll leave you with this. Even though this was a gross and counter-productive move on her part, I'm not necessarily convinced Harris will reap much of a whirlwind, since the shameless, hackery-addicted Journo class is fully on her side -- to the point of sidelining and even smearing mourning families who are simply trying to tell the truth and draw attention to their grief:
Before today, the Abbey Gate Gold Star families hadn't spoken out against Kamala Harris. You could feel that there was an unspoken boundary put in place, and all Harris had to do was keep her mouth shut.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 1, 2024
She just couldn't do it, and now she'll reap the whirlwind.
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