‘She can go to hell’: Vance blasts Harris over Afghanistan withdrawal in harshest rhetoric so far

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, condemned Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday over the Biden administration's handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the Democratic presidential nominee "can go to hell."

Vance's comment at a rally in Erie, Pa., was his harshest rhetoric yet toward Harris on the 2024 campaign trail. It came in response to a reporter’s question about an "incident" that occurred when former President Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery on Monday with family members of service members who died during the 2021 attack at Afghanistan’s Abbey Gate in the final days of the withdrawal.

“Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there hasn’t been a single investigation or a single firing,” Vance said. “Sometimes mistakes happen — that’s just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful.”

Vance said that if they’re going to discuss a story related to Abbey Gate, “It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can, she can go to hell.”

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Vance's remarks.

In a statement Monday, Harris marked the third anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate by saying her "heart breaks" for the pain and loss experienced by the victims' families.

"I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families and I will always honor their service and sacrifice," she said, adding, "President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war."

The Biden administration and Congress have conducted multiple investigations into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the attack that occurred at Abbey Gate as service members were helping people evacuate from the country.

In a 2023 report, the White House, for example, largely blamed the Trump administration for the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, the former U.S. commander who oversaw the withdrawal testified at a congressional hearing that he alone bears responsibility for the American soldiers killed during the attack at Kabul’s airport.

Some family members of the soldiers have voiced frustration with the Biden administration in not providing all of the answers they want.

At the same hearing this year, retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that they were still seeking more information.

Milley said it would take a “considerable length of time” to get those answers, especially because, he said, much of the record is classified.