Trump Campaign Uses Statements From Gold Star Families to Attack Harris

The partisan dispute over Arlington National Cemetery escalated on Sunday when the campaign of former President Donald J. Trump published statements from family members of slain U.S. troops attacking Vice President Kamala Harris after she criticized Mr. Trump for politicizing the cemetery.

It was the latest effort by the Trump campaign to defend itself after a physical altercation between a Trump aide and a cemetery official that was triggered by the campaign defying a ban on political campaigning at the cemetery in Virginia during Mr. Trump’s visit last week. Most of the family members who were with Mr. Trump for that visit signed onto the statement promoted by the Trump campaign.

The Army said in a statement on Thursday that an official at Arlington National Cemetery was physically pushed by a Trump campaign aide after she tried to stop the campaign from filming in a heavily restricted area of the cemetery. Trump campaign officials then insulted the cemetery worker, insisting that there was no physical altercation and that they were prepared to release footage to prove it, but the campaign has not done so.

In her first public comments on the situation, Ms. Harris said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Trump had desecrated the cemetery — considered to be among the most sacred of American institutions. Ms. Harris said that the Arlington cemetery was a solemn place that should be free of politics, describing the campaign’s filming in Section 60 — largely reserved for service members killed in recent wars overseas — as “a political stunt.”

The Trump campaign then released the statement signed by family members of 7 of the 13 U.S. troops killed by a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport during the withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago.

The statement spoke of the heroism of those killed at Abbey Gate, and the grief that the family members have felt in the three years since they lost their loved ones. But it also sought to blame Ms. Harris for the politicization of the cemetery, asserting that it was the vice president who had “disgracefully twisted” Mr. Trump’s visit “into a political ploy,” and it effusively praised Mr. Trump’s leadership, with the family members of the troops asserting that “if he were still commander in chief, our children would be alive today.”

It made no reference to the altercation with the cemetery official, nor the insults directed against her afterward. It also made no mention of concerns by the family of a Green Beret — as well as the Green Beret Foundation, a veterans’ charity — about the Trump campaign filming his gravesite. Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, who earned Silver and Bronze Stars during his service, died by suicide in 2020. Other family members of troops buried in Section 60 at Arlington have expressed outrage at the incident.

Mr. Trump and his campaign also posted videos from the family members on social media that similarly attacked Ms. Harris and praised Mr. Trump, and on Sunday evening published a campaign ad that included those remarks. Some of those family members had defended Mr. Trump’s visit to Arlington in previous statements last week, and some family members were also given speaking roles at the Republican National Convention in July where they criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The former president and his aides have given contradictory explanations for why they filmed at the cemetery. Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, had initially said that the campaign had permission to take photos and video — a notion that statements by the cemetery and the Army had rejected because that would be prohibited by law.

The Trump campaign then highlighted that some of the family members who had appeared alongside Mr. Trump at the cemetery had given the campaign aides permission to film the event themselves — even though the cemetery said officials had repeatedly told the Trump team that it would violate federal law.

Mr. Trump has also repeatedly said that he had posed for photos at the graves spontaneously at the request of family members. He has frequently brought up the incident during his campaign rallies, insisting that he was not campaigning because “I don’t need the publicity.”

“Thank you for saying you wanted me to stand with you at Arlington National Ceremony, and take pictures, that it was your request, not mine, but it was my great honor to do so,” Mr. Trump said of the troops’ families in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday.

The Trump campaign and some family members of the troops killed at Abbey Gate have also suggested that Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden had been invited to the Arlington ceremony along with Mr. Trump. An aide with the Harris campaign said that the vice president had not been invited and pointed to a statement from Ms. Harris that mourned the slain troops on the third anniversary of the bombing last week. A White House official also said that Mr. Biden was not invited.

Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.