'That’s false': Trump caught lying about Afghanistan withdrawal to families of slain veterans

In a TikTok video highlighting Donald Trump's recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery — where members of his campaign staff got into a widely reported altercation with employee — the 2024 GOP presidential nominee compares his record on Afghanistan to that of the Biden administration.

Trump, in the video, claims, "We didn’t lose one person in 18 months. And then they took over that disaster."

But according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, that claim is "false" and misleading.

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"This TikTok of Trump's controversial visit to Arlington, where he marked the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops during the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan overseen by President Joe Biden, has been viewed more than 11 million times," Kessler explains. "Federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries, but Trump's entourage pushed past a cemetery employee who tried to prevent Trump's aides from bringing cameras, according to the (U.S.) Army... In his phrasing, it sounds as if no troops were killed in Afghanistan during the last 18 months of his presidency. That's false, though as we will show, there was an 18-month gap with no fatalities across Trump's and Biden's combined presidencies."

According to Kessler, the Post examined the "last 18 months of his presidency — July 20, 2019, to January 20, 2021."

"That makes the most sense since Trump referenced Biden's taking over," Kessler notes. "The Defense Department database showed 12 deaths from hostile action in that period. We double-checked with the news releases issued by the Pentagon in that period and confirmed the 12 names."

Kessler adds, "The last two deaths occurred on February 8, 2020. Javier Jaguar Gutierrez of San Antonio and Antonio Rey Rodriguez of Las Cruces, New Mexico, both 28, were fatally ambushed by a rogue Afghan policeman. Trump, along with Vice President Mike Pence, flew to Dover Air Force Base when the bodies arrived in the United States. That was 11 months before Trump’s presidency ended."

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Glenn Kessler's full Washington Post fact-check is available at this link (subscription required).