The mother of a Marine killed in the Kabul airport attack called President Joe Biden a ‘dementia-riddent piece of crap’ as the president met with families of the 13 fallen service members on Sunday.
She also claimed that Americans who voted for President Biden “just killed my son.”
Kathy McCollum, whose 20-year-old son, Rylee, was among 13 US service members killed in the attack, told SiriusXM talk show host Andrew Wilkow on “The Wilkow Majority” show that she blamed the “dementia-ridden” president for his death, Newsweek reported.
“Twenty years and six-months-old, getting ready to go home from freaking Jordan to be home with his wife to watch the birth of his son, and that feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap just sent my son to die,” she told Wilkow.
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‘I woke up at four o’clock this morning to Marines at my door telling me my son was dead,’ she said in the emotional account.
President Biden made an unannounced trip to Delaware on Sunday morning for a ceremony to honor the service members killed by an ISIS-K suicide bomber.
He stood in silence, his right hand to his chest, as a succession of flag-draped transfer cases were carried past him from a C-17 Globemaster plane.
The 13 killed on Thursday were Navy corpsman Max Soviak, Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, and Marines Hunter Lopez, Rylee McCollum, David Lee Espinoza, Kareem Nikoui, Jared Schmitz, Daegan Page, Taylor Hoover, Humberto Sanchez, Johanny Rosario, Dylan Merola and Nicole Gee.
Their remains arrived at Dover Air Force Base, at 8 am for a ‘dignified transfer,; when fallen troops’ return to American soil is marked by a solemn movement.
It was the sort of grief-stricken day he wanted to consign to history by ending the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
But instead, he and the first lady spent the first part of the morning meeting privately with the families of the fallen.
He then walked with other dignitaries – including his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and the heads of the military and the first lady – across the air base apron and up the ramp of the C-17.
Inside they spent a minute in prayer, before emerging and taking up their positions beside the plane to watch the bodies being removed.
Relatives of the fallen were hidden from view behind a line of buses. Their presence became obvious as the second flag-draped transfer case emerged from the plane to the sound of anguished howling.
Even though the proceedings were outside, everyone present wore masks.
Days before that, Kathy McCollum called Biden a ‘b***h’ for talking about ‘diplomatic crap with Taliban terrorists who just freaking blew up my son’ rather than apologizing for ‘failing’ his troops.
‘My son is gone, and I just want all you Democrats who cheated in the election, or who voted for him legitimately, you just killed my son,’ she said. ‘With dementia ridden piece of crap who doesn’t even know he’s in the White House who still thinks he’s a senator.’
The death toll was the highest for any single incident since 2011 and Biden has been accused by some of the troops’ families of putting them in harm’s way.
In a statement on Saturday, Biden said: ‘The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.’
‘Their bravery and selflessness has enabled more than 117,000 people at risk to reach safety thus far. May God protect our troops and all those standing watch in these dangerous days,’
Their deaths, as they protected an airlift of Americans and vulnerable Afghans, brought into stark focus the risks of ending the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the potential political cost to Biden.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces allowed the Taliban to regain power, after an almost 20-year war and the cost of 2,400 American military lives.
International allies have openly accused the president of blindsiding them with his rush to exit by August 31.
And his handling of the crisis – blaming Afghan troops for failing to fight the Taliban and his predecessor’s peace deal with the enemy – triggered withering criticism from all sides at home.
On Sunday, he faced the most difficult part of his decision, watching for himself as 13 transfer cases were due to arrive at Dover.
The Pentagon’s policy is to return America’s fallen troops to their loved ones as quickly as possible.
Once the aircraft lands at Dover AFB, service-specific carry teams remove the transfer cases individually from the aircraft and move them to a waiting vehicle, according to information from Dover’s Office of Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations.
The vehicles then transport the fallen to the mortuary facility at Dover for positive identification by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System and preparation for transport to their final resting place.
The transfer event, which the military does not consider a ceremony, but rather an ‘a solemn movement of the transfer case’, can be open to the press for photography and video at the discretion of the fallen troops’ family.
The White House has been forced to defend the withdrawal, saying it was time to end the country’s forever war.’
Biden himself said on Thursday: ‘Imagine where we’d be if I had indicated, on May the 1st, I was not going to renegotiate an evacuation date; we were going to stay there.
‘I’d have only one alternative: Pour thousands of more troops back into Afghanistan to fight a war that we had already won, relative [to] the reason we went in the first place.’
But others said it was never a choice between ramping up or leaving.
A senior European diplomat, who had spent the week trying to get people out of Kabul but was not authorized to speak publicly, offered a blunt assessment.
‘I’m afraid the key question is would 13 American troops have died if you’d just left 2500 doing a stabilising job
‘We can never do a counterfactual but the honest answer is no. You messed up.’
Biden has also been criticized by some of the families.
Nikoui’s father Steve told The Daily Beast on Friday: ‘They sent my son over there like a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security.
‘I blame my own military leaders… Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.’
On Saturday, the president warned that another terror attack was ‘highly likely.’ And Americans were told to avoid the airport once again.
The Pentagon said the remaining deployment of forces at the airport had begun their final withdrawal ahead of Biden’s deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday.
It also said a drone strike had killed a planner and a ‘facilitator’ of ISIS-K plots, but declined to name them.
‘They lost a planner and they lost a facilitator and got one wounded. The fact that two of these individuals are no longer walking on the face of the Earth, that’s a good thing,’ said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.