President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday honoring the American service members killed in a 2021 suicide bombing outside the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“It’s a tough — there’s nothing tougher,” the president said before signing the proclamation in the Oval Office, surrounded by the families of those killed in the attack.
Thirteen American service members, along with more than 100 Afghans, died in 2021 during the suicide bombing in Kabul after two decades of direct American military involvement in Afghanistan. Trump and Vice President JD Vance expressed sympathy to the Gold Star families gathered and also blamed the Biden administration for “incompetence,” accusing the former president of not acknowledging the families’ sacrifices.
Former President Joe Biden did attend the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in 2021, where CNN reported at the time he met with the families of the service members killed.
While most proclamations honoring troops typically adopt a more solemn and apolitical tone, this one takes multiple shots at Biden personally, including for checking his watch during the dignified transfer.
“In what will be remembered as one of the most shameful and heartbreaking moments in our Nation’s collective memory, Joe Biden checked his watch — and time stood still — as a Sailor, Soldier, and 11 Marines returned home in flag-draped coffins, solemnly escorted by their brothers and sisters in arms,” the proclamation reads.
Biden’s administration orchestrated the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after Trump, during his first term, promised to withdraw US troops from the country during his presidency. The Trump administration set the final withdrawal in motion when it negotiated and signed a deal with the Taliban in 2020 that stipulated the drawdown of US service members in Afghanistan.