JD Vance Reacts to Trump’s Arlington Visit ‘Disagreement’

Vice presidential candidate Ohio Senator JD Vance downplayed reports regarding an alleged altercation that broke out between members of former President Donald Trump’s staff and an Arlington National Cemetery official earlier in the week.
Trump visited the cemetery on Monday to pay tribute to the anniversary of the Abbey Gate suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan in 2021, where 13 American soldiers were killed and over a hundred Afghans were injured. NPR reported that two members of Trump’s campaign got into a “verbal and physical altercation” with a cemetery official who allegedly tried to stop Trump’s staffers from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for American soldiers killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Arlington National Cemetery also said in a statement Tuesday that there had been “an incident” involving members of Trump’s team during the wreath-laying ceremony and that a report had been filed on the matter. A defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the former president’s campaign was warned about not taking photographs in Section 60 before an altercation occurred during the ceremony.
While fielding reporters’ questions at a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, Vance said that he believed “the media” was “creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one.”
“There is verifiable evidence that the campaign was allowed to have a photographer there. It’s verifiable they were invited to have a photographer there. There’s verifiable evidence that the families of these poor people who had their loved ones die three years ago…they invited [Trump] to be there and to support them,” Vance continued.
“It is amazing to me that you have, apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery, some staff member had a little disagreement with somebody, and they have turned the media has turned this into a national news story,” he added later on.
The former president’s team has adamantly dismissed claims that a physical altercation occurred during the disagreement. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek that they were “prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” adding, “The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
Trump also shared a letter to social media in the aftermath of the ceremony that was signed by the family members of two of the American soldiers who were killed in the Kabul airport bombing. The letter expressed support for Trump’s attendance and said that his team had “conducted themselves with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity for all of our service members.”
Arlington National Cemetery said in its statement that political campaigns or election-related activities that take place within Army National Military Cemeteries are prohibited under federal law “to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.”
Trump was invited to attend the wreath-laying ceremony by some of the family members of the slain American soldiers. The August 26, 2021, bombing took place after President Joe Biden pushed forward with a withdrawal deal that Trump had previously brokered between Washington and the Taliban. After most U.S. soldiers had left Afghanistan in late August, the U.S.-backed government quickly fell to the Taliban, which remains in control today.
At a rally in Detroit following Monday’s ceremony, Trump blamed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump for president, for the chaotic withdrawal of American troops, and called the attack “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”
Vance told reporters at his Pennsylvania rally Wednesday that he believes U.S. veterans “care a lot more” about the American soldiers who died in the bombing than reports on the altercation between Trump’s team and cemetery staff.
“Kamala Harris is disgraceful,” the senator added. “We want to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that 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—she can go to hell.”
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign via email for comment.
Update 8/28/24, 6:50 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.