Controversy is growing in the United States over Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington Military Cemetery, with Kamala Harris accusing her Republican rival on Saturday of having “disrespected” this “sacred ground” for many American soldiers who died in combat.
On Monday, the former president visited the cemetery near Washington for a ceremony honoring the 13 soldiers killed during the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021.
An altercation broke out during the visit between Donald Trump’s team, who were trying to take photos of the event, said Wednesday the administration of the cemetery, which is the resting place of some 400,000 veterans and their families, as well as two US presidents, including John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
“Donald Trump chose to film a video there, which resulted in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for a political stunt,” the American vice president reacted in X.
On Wednesday, the Republican candidate’s entourage responded by publishing a statement in which the soldiers’ families assured that the presence of photographers had indeed been “validated” by them.
On Thursday, the U.S. Army, in a rare clarification, confirmed that an Arlington employee was “shoved roughly” during Donald Trump’s visit as she tried to enforce a federal law banning political activity on the cemetery grounds.
A spokesman for the US military deplored “an unfortunate incident” and defended the “professionalism” of the cemetery employee.
“Simple and sacred duty”
On Saturday, Kamala Harris again criticized Donald Trump’s attitude, saying that the cemetery was “not a place to play politics.”
“If there is one thing we as Americans can agree on, it is that our veterans, military families and service members should be celebrated, never denigrated and treated with nothing less than our utmost respect and gratitude,” she wrote.
“It is my conviction that a person who is incapable of fulfilling this simple and sacred duty should never again” be president of the United States, the Democrat added.
On Saturday, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance responded, saying: “President Trump was there at the invitation of families whose loved ones lost their lives because of your incompetence.”
“Why don’t you get off social media and open an investigation into these unnecessary deaths?” the senator said on the X network.
Trump’s team has been consistently criticizing Democrats over the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Asked Friday by the television channel MSNBC about the advisability of publishing a campaign video in the cemetery, Donald Trump pleaded ignorance.
“I don’t know who did this,” he said, accusing the Biden administration of “engineering” to create controversy.
On Friday night, during a meeting in Johnston, Pennsylvania, Trump again returned to the incident at length, saying that it was the families of the fallen soldiers who had asked him to take a photo with them.
“I said, ‘Sure!’ I wasn’t doing it to get publicity I don’t need,” he said.
“Joe Biden killed these young men because he was incompetent and they’re coming to me and telling me I’m using their graves for PR. I didn’t do any of that, and I’ll tell you, it was an incident,” he added.
