Joe Biden’s meeting with Gold Star families at Dover Air Force Base on Sunday did not go smoothly, according to multiple accounts. One mother said on social media that she told him to his face that he has blood on his hands. According to several family members, Biden angered grieving parents when he repeatedly invoked his own son, Beau, who died six years ago of cancer, while talking to them.
Gold Star father Mark Schmitz told the Washington Post that he did not want to hear about Beau, he wanted to talk about his son Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, so he and his ex-wife took out a photo of their deceased son to show to Biden. “I said, ‘Don’t you ever forget that name. Don’t you ever forget that face. Don’t you ever forget the names of the other 12,’ ” Schmitz told the Post. “ ‘And take some time to learn their stories.’ ”
Schmitz said that Biden “bristled” at that, and responded defensively: “I do know their stories.”
On Fox News Monday night, Schmitz told host Sean Hannity that Biden “talked a bit more about his own son than he did my son and that didn’t sit well with me.”
The sister of Marine Rylee McCollum, 20, meanwhile described Biden as “scripted and shallow” following the family’s meeting with him at the Dover memorial service.
Roice McCollum said that during the two minute conversation, Biden brought up his son, Beau, in “total disregard to the loss of our Marine.”
Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn slammed Biden for attempting to use his deceased son to shield himself from criticism.
“Maj. Beau Biden, an Army National Guard lawyer, served honorably in Baghdad. His early death from brain cancer was tragic but has nothing to do with Afghanistan or those killed there. Mr. Biden is not a Gold Star father and should stop playing one on TV,” McGurn wrote.
“You can’t f— up as bad as he did and say you’re sorry,’ Roice told the Washington Post. “This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands.”
Kathy McCollum, Rylee’s mother, called Biden a “dementia-ridden piece of crap” in a phone call to a local radio station shortly after she was advised of her son’s death.
“My son was one of the Marines that died yesterday,” McCollum told the radio host on Friday.
‘[He was] getting ready to come home from freaking Jordan to be with his wife to watch the birth of his son,” McCollum raged. “And that feckless, dementia ridden piece of crap just sent my son to die.”
Kathy McCollum, the mother of U.S. Marine Rylee McCollum, who was killed in the Kabul attack, called into a local radio show. She deserves 81 million apologies. pic.twitter.com/15YiyavCbl
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 29, 2021
After her meeting with Biden, Shana Chappell, mother of Marine Kareem Nikoui, 20, tore into him so hard on Facebook and Instagram, her accounts were temporarily suspended.
“President Joe Biden Joe Biden This msg is for you! I know my face is etched into your brain! I was able to look you straight in the eyes yesterday and have words with you,” she wrote. “After i lay my son to rest you will be seeing me again! Remember i am the one who stood 5 inches from your face and was letting you know i would never get to hug my son again, hear his laugh and then you tried to interrupt me and give me your own sob story and i had to tell you ‘that this isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!!!’ You then said you just wanted me to know that you know how i feel and i let you know that you don’t know how i feel and you do not have the right to tell me you know how i feel!” she wrote on Facebook.
Chappell said that Biden rolled his eyes at her as if he was “annoyed,” so she let him know that the only reason she was meeting with him was out of respect for her son. She wrote that when she reiterated that she would never again be able to hug, kiss, or laugh with her son, Biden threw his hand up behind him, as he walked away as if to say, “okay, whatever!”
“You are not the president of the United States of America Biden!!!! Cheating isn’t winning!!! You are no leader of any kind! You are a weak human being and a traitor!!!!” Chappell continued.
You turned your back on my son, on all of our Heros!!! you are leaving the White House one way or another because you do not belong there!MY SONS BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!! All 13 of them, their blood is on your hands!!!! If my president Trump was in his rightful seat then my son and the other Heros would still be alive!!!! You will be seeing me again very soon!!! Btw as my son and the rest of our fallen Heros were being taken off the plane yesterday i watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????You are nobody special Biden!!! America Hates you!!!!
Facebook has suspended the account of Shana Chappell, the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.
Below is what she posted about Joe Biden getting her son killed. pic.twitter.com/Cqcu13c7r0
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) August 31, 2021
Chappell’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were restored Tuesday morning. Facebook confirmed to The New York Post that the removal of her account was a mistake.
“We express our deepest condolences to Ms. Chappell and her family,” Facebook said in a statement. “Her tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies. While the post was not removed, her account was incorrectly deleted and we have since restored it.”
The anger of the families was intensified when they saw the “commander-in-chief ” appearing to impatiently check his watch during the dignified transfer of the 13 U.S. service members who died in the ISIS suicide bombing last week at the Kabul airport.
On Fox News Monday night, Schmitz, along with Gold Star dad Darin Hoover, told host Sean Hannity that Biden looked down at his watch repeatedly.
“In reference to the checking of his watch, that didn’t happen just once,” said Hoover, who lost his son, Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, in the attack. “That happened on every single one that came out of that airplane. It happened on every single one of them. They would release the salute, and he would look down at his watch on every last one—all 13—he looked down at his watch.”
“As a father, you know, seeing that and the disrespect, and hearing from his former leaders, one of his master sergeants said exactly what you just said, that this was avoidable, that they left them over there,” he continued. “They let them down, we can’t have that. It can’t happen ever again.”
Hannity asked Schmitz what he thought about the watch incident.
“I actually leaned into my son’s mother’s ear in I said I swear to god if he checks his watch one more time and was probably only four times in, I couldn’t look at him anymore after that,” Schmitz said. “Considering especially the time and why we were there, I found it to be the most disrespectful thing I’d ever seen.”
Biden’s supporters claim that rather than his watch, he was glancing down at the Rosary bracelet that he wears on his left wrist reportedly in Beau’s honor. The Rosary is a set of prayers recited by the faithful in the Catholic Church, and the beads in usually a pendent, but sometimes a bracelet, are used to count the component prayers. The bracelet or pendant is held and the fingers move along the beads as the prayers are recited.
Update:
Former President released the following statement Tuesday night, responding to Shana Chappell’s Facebook post.
“Shana, you are 100% correct. If I were President, your wonderful and beautiful son Kareem would be with you now, and so would the sons and daughters of others, including all of those who died in the vicious Kabul airport attack. Civilians should have been brought out first, along with our $85 billion of equipment, with the Military coming out very safely after all was clear. I love you, and I love Kareem.”