Paula Knauss Selph, the mother of one of the 13 service members killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, condemned Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday for the botched U.S. withdrawal on Aug. 26, 2021.
Selph’s son, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss, died during an ISIS member’s suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport as U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Selph told CNN’s Brianna Keilar that the Biden-Harris administration has attempted to “sweep it under the rug” instead of addressing their mistakes during an interview held on the third anniversary of the withdrawal.
“It would be great if the administration would start out by saying ‘we made a mistake. We made several mistakes. We did not make the best decisions.’ Instead, this administration has tried to sweep it under the rug, and that’s absolutely not going to work for this nation nor this world who watched this live on television. You can’t deny what we all knew and saw,” Selph said.
Selph then urged Harris to take accountability for the attack as she was part of the administration’s decision-making on the matter. Before the withdrawal, Harris confirmed she was the “last person in the room” when President Joe Biden made the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, during an April 25, 2021, interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.
“You were with the administration during all of this. You hold the same accountability as President Biden does. You were right aside him in making all of these decisions,” Selph said regarding Harris. “And if you say you’re not, then what kind of leader are you going to be in the future if you didn’t have the same decision making with him on this?”
Selph said Biden showed a lack of sympathy when she wept in front of him at the White House, calling on “better character” to be present in the Oval Office. She said Republican nominee Donald Trump personally spoke with her on the phone on Monday and expressed remorse over the events that took place.
“What Trump said to me was that he was sorry. He was so sorry that all of this happened and that it should’ve never happened,” the gold star mother said. “And he’s right, it should’ve never happened.”
Trump honored the fallen service members during a three-year anniversary ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday while Biden vacationed in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
The Biden administration has yet to fire anyone involved in the operation, nor have there been any resignations. A Biden administration report from 2023 directed most of the blame on the Trump administration, given that Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw U.S. forces by 2021.
The Trump campaign responded to that report by arguing the operation would have been handled “safely and securely” if Trump were president, and accused the Biden administration of attempting to “gaslight the American people” rather than take accountability.
The president reportedly believed “nobody made a mistake” during the withdrawal despite the widespread backlash from the gold star families and his critics, according to a new book released in February. The president falsely claimed during a June 27 debate that no Americans died overseas during his presidency.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore
