A Gold Star mother whose son died during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal has revealed the heartless way President Joe Biden treated her when she paid him a visit at the White House.
In August 2021, during the botched withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside of Kabul Airport, killing 13 U.S. service members.
One of the victims was Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss, whose mother met Biden during an event for Gold Star families at the White House in 2022.
According to a U.K. Daily Mail report Monday, during a Memorial Day event at the White House last year, Paula Knauss Selph had a meeting with the president in the Oval Office.
Paula Selph was hoping that the president would show some sympathy, take responsibility, and give her some closure, but Biden did absolutely none of that.
During the meeting, Selph began to weep while reflecting on the loss of her son. Biden sat there making no attempt to comfort her, she said, instead asking her if she wanted a photo with him.
The distraught mother said she responded that she would only like a picture if it was of the president standing next to her son’s tombstone at Arlington National Cemetary.
She said Biden replied, “I can’t do that because Secret Service won’t let me do that.”
Selph said that it was a “moral disgrace” for the president to not have any sympathy or show any mercy to the families of the soldiers under his command, especially since she held him accountable for the tragedy.
Selph has every right to be angry about this encounter. The purpose of this meeting was to honor her and her son’s sacrifice and give her some closure. Instead, the president made it all about him by turning the event into a photo op, seemingly unaware of the mother’s purpose for visiting him.
This seems to be a pattern with Joe Biden. Since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he has shown the same indifference to other Gold Star families.
In 2021, he spoke to Cherry Rex, mother of Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, who also died in the bombing, during the ceremony for the transfer of his remains in Delaware. During the encounter, Biden compared her loss to the loss of his son, Beau, who died from cancer.
Rex said she found herself shaking with anger at the thought that Biden would try to use the occasion to corral sympathy for himself when the event was about the family who had just lost their own son.
But beyond the indifference he has shown to the families of the fallen, we need to remember that Biden is at fault for what happened in Afghanistan, and he needs to be held accountable for it.
His failure to keep Americans safe from terrorists and the abandonment of valuable military equipment in the country constitutes a dereliction of duty, which could be an impeachable offense.
The Republicans in Congress could call in these Gold Star families to testify about how the president failed to keep Americans safe and then showed complete indifference toward them and their plight.
Biden failed to do his job and 13 Americans are dead because of it. To let him get away with it would be a travesty.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
