Sen. Tom Cotton, a one-time member of Arlington National Cemetery's "Old Guard," Sunday defended former President Donald Trump over the controversy concerning Trump's visit to the burial site with members of Gold Star families.
There were 13 victims of the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan.
The Arkansas Republican, appearing on NBC News' "Meet the Press," said that Trump, the GOP nominee, was at the cemetery to honor "the wishes of the 13 families whose children died at Abbey Gate," and added that he wasn't there to take campaign photographs.
"Those families wanted the photos," Cotton said. "They told me yesterday that they specifically asked President Trump for the photos."
Cotton served as a guard at the cemetery for 16 months, beginning in 2007, and wrote about his experience in his 2019 memoir, "Sacred Duty: A Soldier's Tour at Arlington National Cemetery."
Trump's visit to the cemetery drew concerns from the family of late Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, a Green Beret who died by suicide after serving eight combat tours. He is buried in Arlington's Section 60, which is mostly reserved for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Marckesano's gravestone was shown in the photos Trump took with the family of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, one of the 13 Abbey Gate bombing victims.
Marckesano's sister, Michele, told The New York Times last week that her family supports the Hoover family in their quest, but also did not give permission for their family member's grave to be included in the photographs.
"Obviously, headstones at Arlington are close to each other," Cotton said Sunday, adding that he finds it "disappointing" that the Times found a family whose relative's headstone was shown "and then went to them to try to embarrass the Gold Star families who wanted [former] President Trump there."
He added that the Abbey Gate parents' "children died because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' incompetence."
Cotton noted that Biden and Harris were invited but chose not to attend.
"She was four miles away," he said. "In 10 minutes she could have gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn't. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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