President Joe Biden falsely claimed during CNN’s presidential debate last Thursday that he was the first president in the last decade to not have U.S. troops die “anywhere in the world.”
The president claimed that no U.S. military members had been killed during his administration, despite 13 military members being killed during the controversial Afghanistan withdrawal on August 26, 2021.
Attempting to contrast his presidency with former President Donald Trump, Biden said, “When he was president, there were still killing people in Afghanistan, and he didn’t do anything about that. When he was president, we still found ourselves in a position where you had a notion that we were the safe country. The truth is, I’m the only president [in] this century, that doesn’t have any — this decade — that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world.”
Biden’s false claim during Thursday’s presidential debate was met with sharp criticism from Gold Star families. In an interview with Fox News, Darin Hoover, the Gold Star father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, who was killed in Afghanistan during the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal, said, “I knew Afghanistan was going to come up sooner or later.”
The Gold Star father added, “You know, the stumbling, bumbling buffoon that we have in the White House had the audacity to say that under his watch that no military members have died.”
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“The rage, the absolute disgust that I got, from hearing him say that–I started yelling back at the TV. Just out of frustration,” Hoover continued. “He’s never acknowledged, not one time, any of our kids. He’s never said their names. Even to this day, I doubt very seriously that he even knows their names.”
Another Gold Star father named Mark Schmitz, whose son Marine Cpl. Jared Schmitz was also killed during the military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, said everyone was in “utter shock” at Biden’s comments during the presidential debate.
“My poor kids were in the next room – let’s just say I ultimately ended up having to apologize to them for my language,” Schmitz told The New York Post. “It took all self restraint not to put my fist right through my TV.”
“I was beyond ticked off, disrespected,” Schmitz added. “That’s all we’ve ever gotten out of this president.”
