The mainstream media has been unreal lately in their coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris and how former and potentially future President Donald Trump dares to remind that she's part of the Biden-Harris administration. Earlier on Wednesday, Matt covered yet another egregious example from POLITICO, which has quite the nasty habit with such an angle. Now it looks like The Hill is joining in, specifically when it comes to Afghanistan.
The outlet published an article on Wednesday morning bearing the headline of "Former President Trump sidesteps his role in Afghanistan exit in trying to link Vice President Harris to chaos." It's not merely that Trump dares to tie Harris to the administration she's part of and the catastrophic withdrawal. The article also slams Trump.
Former President Trump sidesteps his role in Afghanistan exit in trying to link Vice President Harris to chaos https://t.co/grosxPTAXx
— The Hill (@thehill) August 28, 2024
It's not just the headline. The article involves even more gaslighting from there, and from the very start:
Former President Trump is trying out a campaign strategy to attack Vice President Harris as a straw man for the failures surrounding the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, a chaotic and deadly event that cast a dark shadow over President Biden’s term in office but succeeded in ending America’s longest war.
Republicans and Democrats trade blame over which administration holds responsibility for failing to plan and execute the drawdown of the 20-year military operation in Afghanistan.
Although the article references how Harris herself told CNN in 2021 that she was "the last person in the room" when President Joe Biden made the decision, it does so in the context of how Trump dares to bring it up.
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There's some further blame for Trump, including from a former senior official who couldn't even attach his or her name to the comment [Emphasis added]:
The Trump campaign has sought to shift blame from Biden to Harris by bringing up an April 2021 interview the vice president gave to CNN, where she said she was the last person in the room with the president when he made the decision to exit Afghanistan and said she was comfortable with the choice.
...
Democrats and Trump’s critics point to the former president’s decision to cut out the Afghan government and negotiate directly with the Taliban on withdrawing all U.S. troops on a specific timeline as the key factor that left Biden few good choices in crafting and executing a plan.
“It was a catastrophe, across the board, a civil, military, right down to tactical, catastrophe, and all Trump’s trying to do is to bathe in the blood of those 13 troops,” said a former senior officer who served in Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly.
With remarks like that, it's no wonder this former senior official wants to remain anonymous. Not only are such remarks candid, they're downright shameful. The former official is referring to the 13 U.S. servicemembers who lost their lives on August 26, 2021, three years ago this week, at the Abbey Gate terrorist attack in Kabul.
Gold Star families have also spoken positively about the response from Trump, and in such a way that looks to negate the former official who looks to be going for partisan jabs.
It's not until several paragraphs later that the article even mentions the Gold Star families, who are lumped in with Republicans, as if to lump their pain in with partisan attacks on the Biden-Harris failures.
As the piece also mentions:
The Trump campaign held a call with family members of three U.S. service members killed in the Abbey Gate bombing on Monday, the terrorist attack’s third anniversary, while the former president joined other Gold Star families at a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Republicans, and some families, have attacked Harris and Biden as failing to adequately acknowledge the sacrifice of those soldiers.
“With Trump, we knew our kids were safe,” said Cheryl Juels, whose niece Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole Gee was killed in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.
“You know, he’s a New Yorker — he wasn’t going to deal with anybody hurting our men and women, or he would have, you know, made ’em pay for it, and they all knew that. And with this administration, look at the world right now. I mean, we’ll be lucky if we’re not in a world war three in the next six months.”
Mark Schmitz, father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, who was killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, said Trump is “not perfect” but faulted the Biden-Harris administration as failing to take accountability.
“I think that this [Biden] administration has shown that they’ve treated the withdrawal from Afghanistan like the plague. You know, they have stayed as far away from this as they possibly can,” he said.
Not only have such family members spoken positively about Trump, including in a touching tribute at the RNC last month, they also have spoken out strongly against Biden. During such coverage, mainstream outlets couldn't be bothered to show such tributes. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison instead cracked jokes during that part of the RNC.
RNC airs gut-wrenching video featuring Gold Star families who lost their loved ones during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 18, 2024
“[Biden] let my son down. He let the 13 down. He let the 45 wounded down. He let those 174 civilians down. He let our country down.” pic.twitter.com/Vmc3uxiQS9
MSNBC cut away from the RNC as Gold Star family members of the 13 heroes killed in Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal started speaking about Biden's failures.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 18, 2024
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison was apparently more important! pic.twitter.com/8SzHIHzGxN
Gold Star families have also said that they have yet to receive a call from Biden or Harris about their young relative's sacrifice. "Fox & Friends" also had a segment in which Mark Schmitz, the father of late Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, said Harris "owns this as much as [Biden] does."
When it comes to reports about an "incident" with Trump taking pictures at Arlington National Cemetery, such families continue to speak positively of the former president.
Rather than read NPR, here's what the Gold Star families who were with Donald Trump at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday had to say about his visit--which they invited him to pic.twitter.com/fTc3u5LQuk
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) August 28, 2024
The post from The Hill was thoroughly ratioed over X with over 2,000 replies and hundreds of quoted reposts taking issue with such a framing. Doug P at our sister site of Twitchy covered some of the best responses.
One user even highlighted another headline from The Hill from the anniversary on Monday, about how Harris indeed backs Biden's disastrous move.
Dana Bash: "Biden just made a really big decision. Afghanistan [withdrawal]. Were you the last person in the room?"
— Savannah (@BasedSavannah) August 28, 2024
Kamala Harris: "Yes."
Dana Bash: "You feel comfortable [with the decision to withdraw]?"
Kamala Harris: "I do." (August 16th, 2021)pic.twitter.com/2bWFmSQDgs
Good Lord.
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) August 28, 2024
This fight is just endless.
Media have truly become the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. We don’t have to just beat Kamala, we have to beat the media as well. https://t.co/nAShPGjSz3
This is you, TWO DAYS AGO: pic.twitter.com/yvVf1jzwhj
— You Don't Know the Power of the Dawg Side (@OverpaidA) August 28, 2024
When it comes to the coverage of such an anniversary, The Hill isn't the only one with such a shameful take. The Associated Press, as we covered, has had some particularly bad takes, especially when it comes to Trump looking to tie Harris to the Biden-Harris administration's failures in Afghanistan.
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