Written by Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Republican presidential rival Donald Trump on Saturday over a visit he made to soldiers’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery that was later used in campaign videos.
“It is a solemn place; a place where we come together to honor American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to this nation. It is not a place for politics,” Harris wrote in a post on X.
The vice president took part in the meeting five days after Trump participated in a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday to honor 13 service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
He also visited Section 60 of the Virginia Cemetery, which the military considers sacred ground. Federal law and Pentagon policy do not allow political activities in the section, but the Trump campaign has taken videos and used them for advertising purposes as he battles Democrat Harris in a tight race for the White House.
Trump’s visit has drawn criticism from some veterans and relatives of soldiers. The U.S. military on Friday defended a cemetery employee who was pushed aside in Section 60, saying she had acted professionally and was unfairly attacked.
“Let me be clear: The former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris wrote.
Trump said during a speech in Pennsylvania on Friday that families of service members killed in Afghanistan had asked him to go to Arlington National Cemetery.
“I got there and we had a ceremony,” Trump said. “And then they asked him if he could come to the graves, and then they asked him to take a picture. And I said, ‘Sure.’ So I was taking pictures at the graves.”
Trump’s vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and press secretary Carolyn Levitt responded to Harris’s post on Saturday with their own post that referenced the withdrawal from Afghanistan and accused Harris of being insensitive to service members who died there.
“Why don’t you get off social media and start an investigation into the unnecessary deaths?” Vance wrote.
Trump used the third anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on Monday to try to hold his vice president responsible for the chaotic withdrawal led by President Joe Biden.
Harris, 59, became the Democratic Party’s nominee for the Nov. 5 presidential election after Biden, 81, withdrew from the race in July.
The vice president’s response to Trump’s visit to the cemetery may give some insight into how she will handle the issue in their upcoming debate on Sept. 10.
Harris pointed to Trump’s history of insulting veterans.
“This is nothing new from Donald Trump. This is a man who has called our fallen service members ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients,” she wrote.
Trump once said that the late Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate, was not a war hero even though he spent years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam after his plane was shot down while he was a Navy pilot.
According to former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump referred to World War I veterans as “suckers” and “losers.” Trump continues to dispute the report.
It was not clear whether such incidents would affect veterans’ votes. In an April report, the Pew Research Center found that veterans favored the Republican Party.
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