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Donald Trump faced criticism after giving the thumbs up and smiling while posing for photos at the graves of soldiers killed during the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan at Arlington National Cemetery.
The former president was at the Virginia cemetery to lay a wreath on the third anniversary of the terror attack at the Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport, where 13 American servicemembers were killed.
Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox shared one image from the event on X, writing Monday that there’s no “greater sacrifice than giving one’s life in defense of our country.”
“It was my solemn privilege to stand alongside the family of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover at Arlington National Cemetery today as we paid tribute to his legacy and the 12 others who lost their lives three years ago at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan,” he added.
Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, quickly zeroed in on Trump’s “unusual” pose in the snap.
“Smiling thumbs up at the grave is unusual to say the least,” he wrote on X. “Never mind that Trump negotiated the ‘deal’ and is the reason we left.”
Trump was surrounded by relatives of the soldier, some of whom also gave a thumbs up in the photo shared by Cox.
In another photo shared by the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, Trump did the thumbs up and smiled as he stood at the grave of Nicole Gee, a sergeant. The group called it “disgraceful.”
Trump was joined for the event in Virginia by former Democratic Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, an Army Reserve officer, who endorsed the Republican nominee later on Monday.
Speaking at a National Guard Association meeting in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday, Gabbard, who ran against Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, slammed the Biden administration, claiming that it “has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.”
She added: “This is one of the main reasons why I am committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can once again serve us as our commander in chief.”
While the Trump campaign has been trying to blame the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on the Biden administration, it was the Trump administration that struck a deal for the rapid withdrawal of all US troops. Trump was even planning on hosting the Taliban at Camp David to finalize the agreement in September 2019 before the meeting was called off.
