Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter last week to President Joe Biden requesting that he host a formal meeting with Gold Star families who lost loved ones during the suicide bombing attack at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in 2021.
The California Congressman shared a post via X confirming on Thursday that President Biden had not yet responded to his request for a meeting.
“For two years, Joe Biden ignored and insulted the Gold Star parents as he turned the page on his disastrous decisions that cost our 13 service members their lives. He has yet to in any way make this right with the families,” Issa said.
For two years, Joe Biden ignored and insulted the Gold Star parents as he turned the page on his disastrous decisions that cost our 13 service members their lives. He has yet to in any way make this right with the families.https://t.co/gSB071Yi5w
— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) August 17, 2023
Issa hosted a forum for those same families last week, inviting them to speak publicly about their experiences and raise questions about the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021, culminating with the terror attack at HKIA’s Abbey Gate that took the lives of 13 American service members and more than 150 Afghans.
During that forum, many of the surviving family members were critical of the Biden administration officials who oversaw the troop withdrawal — and some lashed out at Biden directly, calling him “heartless” and saying that when he had met with them, he had attempted to make the conversation about himself and his late son Beau Biden.
Cheryl Rex, who lost her son Lance CPL Dylane Merola in that attack, said that Biden had immediately spun their interaction to talk about his son.
“When Joe Biden, our elected president, came into the room — when he approached me — his words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill and I, know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag-draped coffin,'” she said.
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“My heart started beating faster, and I started shaking, knowing that their son died from cancer and that they were able to be by his side. Also wondering how someone could honestly … sorry … be so heartless to say he knew how I felt a little over 24 hours in learning of my son’s death,” she added.
Mother of Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola who died because of botched Afghanistan withdrawal: “When [Biden] approached me, his words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill & I, know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag draped coffin’'
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 7, 2023
Rex, who blames a failure of leadership for the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, also said that Biden had not spoken to her or mentioned her son’s name once since that meeting.