Washington, DC: US President Donald Trump intensified his criticism of the Biden administration\u2019s resettlement policies after being questioned about Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers near the White House.<\/p>\n
When asked about the attacker\u2019s reported CIA links, Trump said the individual \u201cwent cuckoo (crazy or foolish), he went nuts,\u201d arguing that incidents like this occurred \u201ctoo often with these people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump linked the suspect\u2019s presence in the country to broader issues with the 2021 \u201cOperation Allies Welcome\u201d programme, claiming there had been \u201cno vetting or anything\u201d of Afghan nationals and asserting, \u201cThey came in unvetted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former President Joe Biden rolled out Operation Allies Welcome in August 2021 to assist at-risk Afghans following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban moved back into power soon after the US withdrawl.<\/p>\n
Teump further warned that \u201cwe have a lot of others in this country. We\u2019re going to get them out,\u201d framing the case as part of what he described as systemic lapses during the Afghan evacuation.<\/p>\n
The exchange grew tense when the reporter noted that Afghan arrivals after the Kabul withdrawal had undergone security checks. Trump dismissed that, insisting they were brought in \u201calong with thousands of other people that shouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then rebuked the reporter with, \u201cAre you a stupid person?\u201d and repeated, \u201cyou\u2019re just asking questions because you\u2019re a stupid person.\u201d
\nAs the political debate over vetting intensified, Trump later announced that Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two Guardsmen shot in Wednesday\u2019s attack, had died of her injuries, while the second remained \u201cfighting for his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called Beckstrom a \u201chighly respected, young, magnificent person,\u201d saying he learned of her death just before joining a Thanksgiving video call with US troops.<\/p>\n
He added that the surviving soldier was in \u201cvery bad shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeconds before I went on right now, I heard that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia\u2026 highly respected, young magnificent person\u2026\u201d Trump said. \u201cShe\u2019s just passed away. She\u2019s no longer with us. She\u2019s looking down at us right now. Her parents are with her. This just happened.\u201d
\nThe shooting occurred on Wednesday afternoon (local time) near 17th Street NW and I Street NW, close to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses senior White House staff.<\/p>\n
Trump later said in a statement that the attacker would face severe consequences. \u201cThe animal that shot the two National Guardsmen is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cGod bless our Great National Guard, and all of our Military and Law Enforcement. I am with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities have identified the accused as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, DC: US President Donald Trump intensified his criticism of the Biden administration\u2019s resettlement policies after being questioned about Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers near the White House. When asked about the attacker\u2019s reported CIA links, Trump said the individual \u201cwent cuckoo (crazy or foolish), he went nuts,\u201d arguing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13424,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13422\/revisions\/13424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}