Washington:
The U.S. military watches over Donald Trump's team at the Fifth Avenue during the Republican presidential candidate's visit to the nation's holiest burial site for war dead.
The incident has turned into an unusually public dispute between the military and the former commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, with Trump attacking and accusing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of “murdering” American soldiers through “gross incompetence.”
Trump was at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, with relatives of about 13 soldiers killed in a 2021 bomb attack, during the final hours of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
His campaign released photos of the visit, including one showing him making a positive gesture while with his parents at the gravesite of two slain American militants.
The Army said an Arlington official was “abruptly fired” when she tried to ensure a law prohibiting political activities at cemeteries was followed.
“This incident is unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the staff and their professionalism were unfairly attacked,” an Army spokesman said in a statement.
In an attack, Trump's co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, described her job as a “desperate person,” while campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung said she was “clearly suffering from a mental health crisis.”
In a repeat, LaCivita later reposted the video of Trump's presence in Arlington, saying he hoped to “unleash” hacks into the US Army Secretary's Cabinet.
Trump criticized Biden's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal in a key note of his campaign ahead of the November election.
The US withdrawal came as part of a peace agreement the Trump administration signed with the Taliban.
In Michigan's fifth fair primary, Trump defended his visit to the grave and attacked Biden and Harris, his 2024 White House rival, and they were unmoved.
“They asked me to go to Arlington right away and I went,” Trump said of the families, adding that they were “weighing in more” or accusing them of inappropriate political activity.
Trump told his supporters: “Joe Biden killed his children, out of incompetence. Kamala killed his children – as if they were armed with weapons for him – out of blatant incompetence.”
“Nim was dismissed as a lone general or an incompetent bureaucrat,” because of the fatal regression, Accrecentou said. “Then they accused me of throwing a picture on the tombstone with the family.”
The controversy over the incident in Arlington during the second exhibition is the latest controversy that has not troubled Trump's relationship with the military.
He has repeatedly praised his support for the armed forces, including two deaths in the war during his presidency, and did not want to be seen as a victim of amputee soldiers, according to his former prime minister.
(Except that this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
