Harris Says Trump 'Disrespected Sacred Ground' In Arlington Altercation

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday condemned the altercation that occurred this week at Arlington National Cemetery between Donald Trump campaign staffers and cemetery officials.

“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” she wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The alleged incident occurred during a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday to honor U.S. troops killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago. NPR reported that two Trump staffers on Monday “verbally abused” and pushed aside an official who told them to stop photographing a part of the cemetery where recently fallen U.S. service members are buried.

Federal law prohibits “political campaign or election-related activities, including photographs, within Army National Military Cemeteries,” according to a statement from cemetery officials. Sources told NPR that staffers were informed ahead of time that they couldn’t take photos at the gravesite.

A few days later, Trump’s campaign posted a video to TikTok that featured a montage of the former president participating in the ceremony and making clearly political statements, like boasting about how his administration “didn’t lose one person in 18 months” in Afghanistan and describing the Biden administration’s pullout as a “disaster.”

The cemetery, which is the resting place of over 400,000 service members, veterans and their families, is “not a place for politics,” Harris said. But the incident is not surprising coming from Trump, she added, given the disparaging comments the former president has made about service members.

“This is a man who has called our fallen service members ‘suckers” and ‘losers’ and disparaged Medal of