WASHINGTON – Donald Trump spent part of his last full day as president-elect visiting the graves of three American soldiers killed in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a tragedy that has long been blamed on the Biden administration.
Touring Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery in suburban Virginia on Sunday, Trump stopped at the three gravesites and spoke with families of fallen service members. All three were killed during an attack while working to evacuate people from Kabul on August 26, 2021. They were Darin T. Hoover and Nicole L. Gee of the Marine Corps and Ryan C. Knauss of the Army.
Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term at noon Monday, has sharply criticized Biden for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He has described it as “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.” The choice to visit these particular gravesites reflects the relationship he has built with some of those families since the Kabul attack, including during the campaign, and may suggest that he wants to keep the Biden-era Afghanistan withdrawal in focus.
After Trump’s victory in November, NBC News reported that his transition team was compiling a list of current and former top military officers who participated in the withdrawal and studying whether they could be court-martialed.
Biden has stood by his decision to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan. A report from his 2023 National Security Council blamed the first Trump administration for creating conditions that “severely constrained” Biden’s options.
The report mentioned that Trump had reached a deal with the Taliban in which the United States agreed to withdraw all its forces from Afghanistan by spring 2021, a period when Trump was gone and Biden was in power.
Trump traveled to the cemetery in a cold rain and began the visit by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Wearing a dark coat and gloves. In the cold, he stood up solemnly after placing the wreath and saluted. Vice President-elect JD Vance and two people who had lost family members in combat yesTood with Trump and also established crowns.
Watching from a distance were Trump’s wife, Melania, and four of his children: Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany. Various Trump cabinets selections also attended the ceremony, including Pete Hegseth, his pick for defense secretary; Marco Rubio, the designated secretary of state; and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence.
Trump’s last visit to the cemetery resulted in a confrontation with a grounds worker. He participated in a wreath-laying ceremony on August 26, commemorating the third anniversary of the Kabul attack that killed a total of 13 US service members. Then he moved to Section 60, where some soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
NPR reported that a cemetery worker attempted to stop two members of Trump’s entourage from filming at the site, resulting in an altercation.
Trump’s campaign said he had been invited to the cemetery by families of Gold Star soldiers who had died in the attack and had been allowed to bring a photographer.
The Army said in a later statement that a Trump aide had “abruptly sidelined” a cemetery employee who had attempted to impose restrictions on photography and defended the unnamed employee’s actions.
