Vice President Kamala Harris criticized former President Donald Trump for attending the wreath-laying ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery, accusing him of “disrespect[ing] sacred ground.”
On Saturday, Harris lamented Trump for committing a “political stunt” for an incident that occurred between a member of his team and the cemetery staff.
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris wrote on X, calling Arlington a “solemn place where we come together to honor American heroes ... not a place for politics.”
An Arlington Cemetery staff member reportedly got into an “altercation” with a cemetery worker who stopped the former president’s team from photographing in section 60. Trump was honoring the 13 American soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan during the Biden Administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
“This is nothing new from Donald Trump,” Harris wrote on Saturday. “This is a man who has called our fallen service members ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients.”
"If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude.," she continued. "And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America."
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…
The Gold Star families invited both Trump and the Biden-Harris Administration to attend the ceremony. However, neither the president nor the vice president reportedly accepted the invitation.
Trump’s campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, told the Washington Examiner, “The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises, and for whatever reason, an unnamed individual decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) criticized Harris, calling her “disgraceful.”
“To have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful,” Vance said. “We’re gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives; it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up… she can — she can go to hell.”