On the fourth anniversary of the Kabul International Airport terrorist attack in which her son, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, was killed, Paula Knauss Selph told Newsmax she received better treatment from President Donald Trump than from former President Joe Biden.
Selph, appearing on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," criticized her interaction with Biden in 2022.
"If he were so sad when he invited me to the White House, he would not have said the first words out of his mouth as I walked toward him: 'I can understand if you're angry,'" the Gold Star mother said. "There was no empathy or sympathy. I looked into his eyes and wept, and it was not what I saw as a mother very shortly after losing my child."
She said her meeting with Trump this week was different.
Surrounded by about 35 family members of those killed, Trump on Monday marked the fourth anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the chaotic withdrawal at the end of the Afghanistan war by signing a proclamation honoring the fallen.
"I was so thrilled yesterday to be in the presence of a president who knew my child's name — his first name, his last name," Selph said. "He knows each one of these children that died. He has a heart for the limbs and the legs and arms that were injured, for others who were hurt but not killed. And he has a heart to never see again the brutality that happened."
On Aug. 26, 2021, a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS-K detonated explosives at Abbey Gate, one of the main entry points into Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. The blast killed 11 Marines, a Navy corpsman, and Knauss, along with more than 170 Afghans.
The attack struck as thousands of Afghans crowded the airport during the Biden administration's rushed evacuation, becoming the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in a decade.
For Selph, the anniversary is painful and a call to action. She said her son's sacrifice should remind Americans that "it doesn't have to be this way," and she urged leaders to ensure that the mistakes of the Kabul evacuation are never repeated.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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