U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Brendan Mcdermid | Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday skewered former President Donald Trump for filming at the Arlington National Cemetery, accusing him of exploiting his visit for political purposes, which is prohibited.
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris wrote in a lengthy X post. “This is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to himself.”
A half-hour later, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, fired back at Harris in his own social media post: “President trump was there at the invitation of families whose loved ones died because of your incompetence.”
“Why don’t you get off social media and go launch an investigation into their unnecessary deaths?” Vance added.
The Trump campaign echoed that line of defense in its own social media post, responding to Harris: “You’ve never ONCE taken responsibility for the 13 heroes killed on your watch — while you bragged about being the last person in the room.”
Over the past week, Trump has faced heat for his Monday visit to Arlington Cemetery, during which his campaign staffers “abruptly pushed aside” a cemetery worker trying to enforce federal laws that prohibit conducting “political activities” on military cemetery grounds, according to a U.S. Army spokesperson.
Trump made the trip to the cemetery to commemorate the three-year anniversary of the killing of 13 U.S. service members in a bombing at Kabul Airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he has repeatedly blamed on President Joe Biden and Harris.
While Trump met with families of the victims, his campaign staff took various photos and videos, several of which were posted to his social media platforms.
The Arlington Cemetery issued a statement confirming the incident between the campaign and the cemetery staff member, which NPR was first to report.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery said.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly denied any physical altercation and said it had approval to have a photographer and videographer on the premises. A Trump campaign spokesperson said the incident was the result of a cemetery staffer having a “mental health episode.”
Trump on Friday said he only took pictures at the site because the victims’ families wanted to.
“I stood with different people over different graves and took pictures. I didn’t want to take pictures, but I wanted to take them if they wanted to take them,” he said in a moderated conversation with Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.
The Harris campaign has pounced on the controversy, scorning Trump for disrespecting U.S. troops and pointing to several other incidents where the former president has faced backlash for reportedly making disparaging comments about veterans, which he has denied.
“This is nothing new from Donald Trump,” Harris wrote in her Saturday post. “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.”