Former President Donald Trump marked the anniversary of the United States’s withdrawal from Afghanistan on Monday by laying wreathes at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the soldiers whose lives were lost three years ago.
House Republicans have used the date, on which 13 service members were killed in a suicide bombing in 2021 at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, to criticize President Joe Biden for the chaotic evacuation but also honor the soldiers and their families.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced on Monday that the 13 service members killed in the Abbey Gate bombing will posthumously receive the Congressional Gold Medal on Sept. 10 in a ceremony at the Capitol.
Trump’s trip to the cemetery came shortly after he criticized the withdrawal as “the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country” in a post on Truth Social. He has traditionally used the events to criticize Biden as a weak leader on the international stage, but he has shifted to placing blame on Vice President Kamala Harris, his new opponent in the 2024 race.
“She bragged that she would be the last person in the room, and she was. She was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan,” Trump said last week at a rally in North Carolina. “She had the final vote. She had the final say, and she was all for it.”
Originally, the Trump administration set a deadline of May 2021 to pull all troops out of Afghanistan, but Biden delayed the deadline to Sept. 11, 2021. By mid-August, the operation was expedited, and the Taliban took over control of the government. The suicide bombing, which also killed over 170 Afghan citizens, occurred on Aug. 26 that year.
Biden, Harris, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin do not have any public events listed to mark the third anniversary, but all three released statements Monday morning. Biden is in Delaware, and Harris is in Washington.
“These 13 Americans — and the many more that were wounded — were patriots in the highest sense,” Biden said in a statement. “Some were born the year the war in Afghanistan started. Some were on their second or third tour. But all raised their hand to serve a cause greater than themselves — risking their own safety for the safety of their fellow Americans, Allies, and Afghan partners.”
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“They embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless,” the president continued. “And we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill.”
House Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee have continued their investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal, most recently interviewing former White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
