Vance defends telling Harris to ‘go to hell’ for cemetery criticism she didn’t give

Former president Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, doubled down Wednesday on telling Vice President Kamala Harris to “go to hell,” falsely repeating that she had feigned outrage over an altercation between Trump’s campaign and an Arlington cemetery worker when she had not.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Vance defended his attack on Harris — saying “go to hell” is “a colloquial phrase” — and tied it to broader criticism of the administration’s handling of an Islamic State attack that killed 13 U.S. troops during the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Don’t focus on Donald Trump showing up to grieve with some people who lost their children. Focus on your own job. Don’t do this fake outrage thing. If Kamala Harris was really outraged about what happened, then she would do her job differently, start a real investigation, and fire some of the people who are involved.”

Vance also referred to a 2020 Biden campaign video that included a photo of Biden as vice president in 2010 in Section 60, the area of the cemetery that includes recent conflicts. However, the photo was taken at an official Memorial Day event, not while Biden was campaigning for president a decade later. The content of the campaign video memorialized soldiers and did not attack his opponent.

Harris, who began a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, has not brought up the cemetery visit on the campaign trail. She is expected to sit down for an interview with CNN on Thursday that will air later at night. On Wednesday, Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler told CNN that the cemetery incident was “pretty sad” but “not surprising coming from the Trump team.”

Vance spoke with The Post shortly before remarks at the International Association of Firefighters Convention a day after Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, addressed the gathering as both parties vie for the union’s endorsement. Vance was booed and heckled at some points during his speech by members of the union, which endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020.

Shortly before he arrived in Boston for his speech, the Army released a rare statement defending a staff member at Arlington National Cemetery who found herself in a brief confrontation Monday with two men working for the Trump campaign, saying that she “acted with professionalism” during the encounter and that her reputation has been “unfairly attacked” by the former president’s representatives.

Asked if the campaign should apologize to the worker, Vance said no. He said he hadn’t reviewed the incident but it had been overblown.

“The media and the Democrats have made a scandal out of something where there really is none,” he said before adding, “I don’t know the details of the altercation between the photographer and somebody in Arlington, so I certainly want to understand better before I comment directly on that. But from what I’ve seen, the president was invited.”

Trump visited the cemetery Monday on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops. Relatives of two of those service members had invited him to accompany them to their loved one’s graves. His campaign later posted a TikTok video with a montage of wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walking among marble headstones as soft guitar music plays and the former president’s words are heard criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.

The Army said the campaign was informed in advance of federal regulations barring partisan activity at the cemetery. But at a campaign event on Wednesday, Vance said it should be up to the families who had invited Trump to the cemetery.

Vance has barnstormed in battleground states in recent weeks, speaking to supporters in Big Rapids, Mich. on Tuesday, truckers in Erie, Penn. on Wednesday and Wisconsin voters in De Pere later Wednesday, and emphasizing the campaign’s message that inflation has led to higher costs for workers under Biden. On Thursday, he told firefighters that Trump would close the southern border and reduce overdose deaths. He shared his own personal experience watching first responders save his mother from near death after she had used drugs.

While Walz had been booed by some audience members, Vance experienced heckling as soon as he walked onstage.

“Sounds like we got some fans and some haters,” he said. “That’s okay.”

Billy Lynch, a firefighter from Evanston, Ill., heckled Vance when he promised that a second Trump administration would not “sit on our hands while rioters and arsonists burn down American cities like they did to Minneapolis in 2020.” Lynch said Republicans must first acknowledge the damage inflicted on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters overran police officers to try to overturn the election of Biden as president.