Editorial: Gold Star families rebuke Harris over cemetery attack

Kamala Harris is now attacking Donald Trump for mourning with the families of fallen service members. Even in a heated political environment, that’s shameful.

Last week, former President Trump participated in a wreath-laying ceremony to honor the 13 fallen heroes murdered in Afghanistan three years ago. A suicide bomber killed them as they worked near the Kabul airport. The city was in chaos after President Joe Biden’s foolhardy decision to surrender the country to the Taliban.

Their family members, like all families of military casualties of war, have borne a heavy price. Some of them invited Trump to attend the ceremony to honor their loved ones. Whatever you think of him, it’s to his credit that he showed up. As many family members have clearly stated, his continued personal outreach is deeply meaningful to them.

That should have been the end of it. Instead, officials at Arlington National Cemetery accused Trump’s team of violating its rules. The cemetery has strict and understandable restrictions on videos and photos that convey the impression a visitor is endorsing a product or campaigning. The cemetery claims a Trump staffer pushed aside a cemetery employee who tried to enforce those rules. The Trump campaign strongly disagreed.

Whatever happened was so minor that officials had to leak it to NPR for anyone to find out about it. Absent the national mainstream’s media interest in attacking Trump, it would have been a forgettable story.

“We had given our approval for President Trump’s official videographer and photographer to attend the event, ensuring these sacred moments of remembrance were respectfully captured,” several family members of the fallen said in a statement.

Emboldened by the media’s attacks, Harris weighed in.

“The former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” she wrote on X.

She should have run that claim by the Gold Star families. Of course, that would require talking with them.

“Vice President Harris, I ask you, why won’t you return a call and explain to us how you call my daughter-in-law’s death a success?” Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee, said in a video.

“Your administration killed my son, deliberately, in exchange for political theatrics,” Steve Nikoui, the Gold Star father of Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, said in a video.

That decision — not manufactured outrage over Trump comforting the families of those who died — is the real scandal. No wonder Harris launched a desperate attack to distract from it.