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Report: Biden's Nap Delayed Meeting With Gold Star Families Following Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  December 22, 2024 4:15 PM

With President Joe Biden's presidency coming to an end in approximately one month, reports keep coming out to confirm what we knew all along, that he was a doddering old man who wasn't properly dealing with his tasks of the presidency. Afghanistan has come up plenty, as Sarah covered when mentioning that report from The Wall Street Journal, in how the president was too "mentally fatigued" to take a call from Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) about his concerns with the withdrawal, who was then the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Now, a new report from the Daily Mail details how Biden's nap delayed his meeting with Gold Star families. 

"Senile Biden's insult to families of Marines murdered in disastrous Afghan withdrawal," read the damning headline. According to the piece, the president kept the Gold Star families waiting for three hours while they napped on the tarmac. Biden was meeting with family members of those 13 U.S. servicemembers who were killed when a suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate in Kabul on August 26, 2021.

This is hardly the only infamous moment when it comes to that dignified transfer. Biden was also seen checking his watch several times. Despite the photographic evidence, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki lied about such a moment, as she did about other aspects of the chaotic withdrawal, of which she played a role. For lying about Biden checking his watch at the dignified transfer in her new book, Psaki was called out by the Gold Star families, and the book was edited. 

The Daily Mail report also mentions Biden checking his watch and includes comments from Gold Star family members as well:

While Biden was absent from the withdrawal planning, he did show up to greet the caskets of the US Servicemen and woman who were killed, infamously checking his watch on the tarmac before their coffins were brought out. 

It was his second insult to their families that day, according to the sister of Rylee McCollum, one of the men who died. 

'(Biden) made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he couldn't pull it together,' Roice McCollum told DailyMail.com. 

Roice said she and others were waiting for Biden to appear when a military officer told her he was napping on his plane. 

Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, and Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, who were also killed in the Kabul blast, told DailyMail.com that their families were also left waiting on the tarmac. 

'We sat in that office for what seemed like an eternity waiting on the doddering old fool,' Hoover recalled.

The White House denies the claims made by the Gold Star families in a statement that comes off as laughable at times. The report goes on to include comments from both the White House and Roice McCollum, the sister of Lance Cpl Rylee McCollum, one of the 13 who was killed.

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The White House not only says that the claim "is untrue," but then still expects us to believe that he "honors these families... and holds them in the highest regard." 

As the report goes on to mention:

The White House denied the families' claims. 

A spokesperson told Daily Mail: 'That claim is untrue. As President Biden said on the 4th anniversary of the tragic attack on Abbey Gate and in the letters he wrote to family members after meeting with them in Dover, ‘these 13 Americans—and the many more that were wounded—were patriots in the highest sense’ and ‘we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill.’ 

'The President honors these families, who have given more to their nation than anyone ever could, and holds them in the highest regard' 

Summing up the experience that day, Roice said Biden 'was far beyond a position where he should have been in office, but the powers that be covered it up. We were left in the dark - worse than that, we were blatantly lied to.' 

While Biden may have written letters to these Gold Star families, or so we're told, President-elect Donald Trump has spent a considerable amount of time individually with these families.

During this year's RNC which was held in Milwaukee back in July, the Gold Star families were featured prominently and spoke during a particularly emotional part of the convention. In stark contrast, MSNBC cut from such moments to laugh and joke around with DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison. 

More recently, on the anniversary of the attack, Trump paid his respects at Arlington Cemetery. The Gold Star families meanwhile were still saying that they never heard from Biden.

Many have been weighing in over X about the Daily Mail report, including members of Congress like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-IN). 

Banks put it especially well when he lamented that the "Afghanistan catastrophe was the low point of the worst presidency of my lifetime."