Support truly
independent journalism
Senator JD Vance ripped into Vice President Kamala Harris for using a teleprompter in her speeches minutes before making his own gaffe during a campaign stop.
At a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Vance slammed Harris for her use of teleprompters.
“I don’t need a teleprompter, I’ve actually got thoughts in my head,” Vance told the crowd. “Unlike Kamala Harris.”
Minutes later, Vance made a mistake while speaking, referring to Afghanistan’s Abbey Gate — where 13 American troops and 170 Afghan civilians died in a terrorist attack in August 2021 — as Abbey Road, the infamous Beatles album.
Monday marked the third anniversary of the attack, which happened amid the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
“The families of these poor people who had their loved ones die three years ago at Abbey Road, they had to — I mean, Abbey Gate,” Vance said.
The gaffe came as Vance answered a reporter’s question about a recent NPR report that claimed a Donald Trump campaign staffer verbally abused and pushed a cemetery official who tried to stop them from filming and photographing in Section 60, where troops who have recently died are buried.
“There is verifiable evidence that the campaign was allowed to have a photographer there,” Vance said, just before his Abbey Gate mistake. “There’s verifiable they were invited to have a photographer there.”
At the same event, Vance said Harris is “disgraceful” and can “go to Hell.”
“Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up, she can go to Hell,” he said.
Arlington National Cemetery confirmed in a previous statement to The Independent that “there was an incident, and a report was filed.”
When previously reached for comment by The Independent, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was any physical altercation and vowed to release video to back up his claim.
Meanwhile, an uptick in Trump-Vance campaign stops could come soon after CNN reported their team is taking on a new strategy.
“Think Trump on steroids,” an unnamed campaign source told the network. “This is going to be an all-hands-on-deck approach.” The source also told the outlet Trump would visit two states per day, focusing on battleground areas.
