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.”
Trump and his allies have been known to push past the boundaries of political norms during the former president’s nearly decade-long political career. But the type of crass language Vance used to condemn a political opponent Wednesday is particularly unusual in modern politics.
Defense officials said the confrontation occurred when an Arlington National Cemetery staff member warned people employed by the Trump campaign that while they were permitted to take photos and videos in the cemetery, they could not do so in Section 60, the final resting place for many U.S. service members killed in recent conflicts.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to the first report of the altercation, from NPR on Tuesday, by baselessly accusing the employee of “suffering from a mental health episode.” Defense officials said the employee was trying to do her job and the claim of a mental health episode was false. On Wednesday, Cheung said the employee “initiated physical contact that was unwarranted and unnecessary.”
Cheung also said the campaign would release footage to support his claim, but it has not. The Trump campaign on Wednesday posted a video to TikTok that was recorded at the cemetery; in it, Trump is seen at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walking among marble headstones as soft guitar music plays and the former president’s words are heard criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.
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.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment about Vance’s comments about the Democratic nominee. Harris, who began a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, did not bring up the issue on the campaign trail.
Vance’s harsh language Wednesday came hours after Trump went on a posting spree, sharing increasingly conspiratorial and sometimes vulgar posts on his Truth Social profile aimed at Harris and his political opponents.
Trump shared another user’s post with an image of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Harris, amplifying a vulgar joke about a sex act — an apparent reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Harris’s short-lived romantic relationship with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Another repost showed an AI image of his political opponents — including Harris — in prison. One image called for military tribunals aimed at former president Barack Obama. He also reshared other users’ three QAnon-related images and posts, including an image depicting Trump holding a “Q+” symbol.
QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory that imagines Trump in a battle with a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex. Its devotees shared their claims in online conservative forums during much of Trump’s presidency, and the radical ideology has been credited for helping fan the flames of extremism that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s reshares on social media came on the heels of special counsel Jack Smith’s filing of an updated indictment against Trump. Trump faces the same four charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Many of the posts Trump shared were related to the case — including one that superimposed red eyes and horns over Smith’s face and another saying Smith should be prosecuted.
Dan Lamothe, Hannah Knowles and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
