(Fox News) President Biden is facing criticism from Gold Star families after falsely claiming during Thursday’s CNN Presidential Debate that he’s the “only president this century, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world.”
Biden, after denying that 13 American service members were lost in Afghanistan, also said during the debate that “when he [Trump] was president, they were still killing people in Afghanistan. And he didn’t do anything about that.”
Darin Hoover, Gold Star father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover who was one of those 13 American service members killed in action on August 26, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan, had a strong reaction to Biden’s debate claims.
The younger Hoover, 31, was engaged to be married when he was killed. It was his third tour in Afghanistan.
“I knew Afghanistan was going to come up sooner or later,” said Hoover in an interview with Fox News Digital, recalling the debate.
“You know, the stumbling, bumbling buffoon that we have in the White House had the audacity to say that under his watch that no military members have died.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital after the initial publication of this story, a White House spokesperson said, “President Biden cares deeply about our service members, their families, and the immense sacrifices they have made. That’s why the President attended the dignified transfer of the 13 brave service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan on August 26, 2021; as well as, of the three who lost their lives in Jordan earlier this year.”
“As he said then and continues to believe now: Our country owes them a great deal of gratitude and a debt that we can never repay, and we will continue to honor their ultimate sacrifice,” the spokesperson added.
The Gold Star dad added, “the rage, the absolute disgust that I got, from hearing him say that–I started yelling back at the TV. Just out of frustration. He’s never acknowledged, not one time, any of our kids. He’s never said their names. Even to this day, I doubt very seriously that he even knows their names.”