A Gold Star mom who lost her son in the terrorist bombing during the botched Afghanistan withdrawal confronted CNN host Jake Tapper about the media silence over President Biden’s handling of the withdrawal.
Kelly Barnett, the mother of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, had noted in the past that her son had served in Afghanistan twice before he was murdered in the attack. She said he had told her he was concerned “the moment that he landed and saw what he saw. His words were chaos, no communication, lack of leadership. He said he never [saw] anything like it.”
“He told me, Mom, I now know that the command cares nothing for us,” Barnett had stated. “My son, these 12 others left this earth thinking that their command cared nothing for them.”
“Ms. Barnett, I know you’ve been hesitant to speak out about what happened to your son,” Tapper said as he started his interview with her on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” “And I totally respect that. Why have you decided to talk publicly now about it?”
“If you give me a little leeway here, when I first saw, you know, the text saying CNN wanted to talk to me, I was so happy,” Barnett responded. “Where have you all been? We need you, Jake. We need you. We need CNN. We need all the other networks to voice our opinions, our truths and get it out there.”
“We need the country to come together,” she continued. “I want justice for my son. He fought and he died for this country, not for conservatives, not for liberals. He fought for all of us. My job as his mom is to make sure that we come together and make sure this never happens again.”
Tapper protested, “We’ve been covering the story of the botched withdrawal since it happened. And it’s just heartbreaking.”
“You have said that the Biden administration lied to you about what happened that day,” Tapper said. “Tell us more about that. What did they tell you that was wrong?”
“First off, they told me that my son died on impact, which is completely 100 percent false,” Barnett revealed. “He lived. He put a tourniquet on himself. He handed out his ammo to his men because, you know, gunfire is going off. So he, you know, he did live for a little while. I now know because of witnesses that were there. You know, how he — where he was when he passed. They lied about where he was standing.”
“And again, from witnesses, I now know where that truth is,” she continued. “I’m not really sure, you know, they even know where he was at this point. But I know where he was. They’ve given false statements.”
“If President Biden were watching right now, what would you want to say to him?” Tapper asked.
“I wanted to say to him that he needs to be a grown man,” Barnett replied. “He needs to come out and say, yes, I made a mistake. I chose wrong. I was looking for a photo op and I messed up. That’s what he needs to do.”