ERIE, Pa. — Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) told Vice President Kamala Harris she “can go to hell” Wednesday if she wanted to criticize former President Donald Trump for attending a ceremony honoring the fallen 13 servicemembers who died during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Vance’s swipe came after the Trump campaign reportedly got into an altercation with a cemetery official at Arlington National Cemetery, who tried to stop them from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for military personnel killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview with CNN, a spokesperson for Harris, Michael Tyler, called the incident “pretty sad” and “not surprising.”
The VP pick was asked to comment on the incident at a campaign event in Erie, Pa. when he became visibly frustrated and sniped that the Democratic presidential nominee “can go to hell” if her team wanted to use it as an opportunity to attack Trump.
He then hit back at Harris for not firing anyone responsible for the withdrawal that happened under her watch.
“The other thing that our veterans care more about is that three years ago, 13 brave innocent Americans died. And they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job and there hasn’t been a single investigation or a single firing,” he said.
“Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We want 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. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?”
She “can go to hell” he scoffed.
Vance also insisted that the incident was exaggerated by the media.
“The altercation at Arlington cemetery is the media creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one,” he said, saying the Gold Star families wanted Trump there and that the incident was not an “insult” to the memories of the fallen servicemembers.
The Ohio senator said that an Arlington National Cemetery staff member “had a little disagreement with somebody” but that the media ran with it to create a “national news story.”
On Tuesday, NPR reported that two Trump campaign staff members “verbally abused and pushed” aside a cemetery official who tried to prevent staffers from filming and photographing while the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony.
A spokesperson for the Arlington National Cemetery told The Post that there was an “incident,” that a “report has been filed” and that “federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.”
The Trump team has insisted that the individual who confronted the campaign about photography was “suffering from a mental health episode” and that there was “no physical altercation as described,” communications director Steven Cheung said.
One Gold Star family member who was at the cemetery with Trump backed up the campaign’s version of events, and claimed the cemetery staff was “lying.”
“We are the ones that invited Trump. He didn’t invite himself,” Darin Hoover, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, told The Post in a phone interview on Wednesday.
“We invited him because we knew that he had our backs, he supports us. He cares about us.
“While I was there, I didn’t witness any, any physical altercation or anything like that. And quite frankly, the Arlington staff is lying. I mean, it’s just, it’s a flat-out lie,” Hoover fired back.
“We wanted the pictures to memorialize, you know, what President Trump had said and done and … that moment where he’s paying his respects to our children,” Hoover continued.
The Gold Star family member also said Trump’s support is “a far cry more than what the current administration has done” — which is “absolutely nothing.”
“The current administration wants to sweep it under the rug and make sure it stays buried,” Hoover said.
Attendees at the Erie rally, meanwhile, told The Post that Vance’s military experience and him being a Marine veteran is a positive for the Republican ticket.
Gene Seip, 69, a business owner born and raised in Erie, said that “one of the demographics he’s drawing is military people.”
Chris Knight, 68, is the head cook at a school in Corry, Pa. She brought a hard copy of Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” with her and said that she’s a fan of the senator, not just Trump.
Vance is “adding to the veterans,” she said, noting that her son was in the military and that “it’s important that we keep our kids here and only send them away if they have to go.”
Additional reporting by Ethan Dodd
