JD Vance has chimed in about Donald Trump’s grotesque violation at Arlington National Cemetery this week. Two Gold Star families invited Trump to what was supposed to be a private wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington. That is their right – Gold Star families can invite whoever they want to private events at Arlington. The problem was that Trump brought campaign staffers, including a photographer and videographer, and they turned the wreath-laying into a campaign event. The Trump campaign even made and posted a TikTok using footage from Arlington (which is against federal law). Trump staffers also assaulted a woman who works at Arlington because she tried to stop them from filming there. Other Gold Star families are incredibly offended by all of this and it’s an awful story for the Trump-Vance campaign. Instead of apologizing, they sent JD Vance out to tell Kamala Harris to “go to hell.”

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance said at a campaign event on Wednesday that he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris “can go to hell,” adding to the increasingly personal attacks former president Donald Trump’s campaign has lodged against the Democratic presidential nominee in recent days.

A reporter at the campaign event asked Vance about an altercation involving Trump campaign staff that took place at Arlington National Cemetery, which the former president visited Monday to mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the evacuation from Afghanistan. Federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries and as The Washington Post previously reported, a cemetery employee tried to enforce the rules as provided to her by blocking Trump’s team from bringing cameras to the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years, according to a senior defense official and another person briefed on the incident. A larger male campaign aide insisted the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee.

Vance said at his campaign stop in Erie, Pa., on Wednesday that the press was “creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one.” He said the family members of fallen service members in attendance “invited [Trump] to be there and to support them.” But the Ohio senator, a military veteran, then used the question to tie the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal to the Democratic presidential candidate.

“Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives? It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened,” he asserted, though there have been extensive federal investigations into the Abbey Gate bombing.

Vance accused Harris of criticizing Trump’s visit to the cemetery, saying: “And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can — she can go to hell.”

Harris, who began a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, did not bring up the issue on the campaign trail. In an interview with CNN that aired earlier Wednesday — before Vance’s campaign events — Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said the cemetery incident was “pretty sad” but “not surprising coming from the Trump team.”

[From WaPo]

Again, no one has said that Trump couldn’t or shouldn’t go to Arlington when specifically invited by families. The problem is not that Trump went to Arlington. The problem is that he turned it into a campaign event. The problem is that his team assaulted an Arlington employee (a servicewoman) when she tried to stop them from violating federal law. The problem is that Trump showed a massive amount of disrespect for the other fallen soldiers who are buried in Arlington. The problem is that the Trump campaign turned this horrible incident into a TikTok. Vance knows all of this and he’s desperately trying to make it all about Kamala Harris.

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