Mother of marine killed in Afghanistan invites Trump to funeral after slamming Biden
‘If I were President, your wonderful and beautiful son Kareem would be with you now,’ Trump tells mother of slain soldier
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The mother of a US marine who was killed in Afghanistan during the US troop withdrawal has invited former President Donald Trump to her son’s funeral after Mr Trump responded to her social media post slamming President Joe Biden.
Shana Chappell, the mother of Marine Corps Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, asked Mr Trump to come to the 18 September service at the Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California.
Ms Chappell said Mr Biden had “blood on his hands” after the suicide attack by ISIS-K that killed 13 US service members at the Kabul airport on 26 August.
She also appeared to falsely claim that Mr Trump had won the 2020 election.
“If my president Trump was in his rightful seat then my son and the other [heroes] would still be alive!!!!” she wrote in a Facebook post on 30 August. The post was shared at least 16,000 times.
Mr Trump then picked up on the comment, issuing a statement saying that she was “100 per cent correct”.
“If I were President, your wonderful and beautiful son Kareem would be with you now, and so would the sons and daughters of others, including all of those who died in the vicious Kabul airport attack ... I love you, and I love Kareem,” Mr Trump said.
In a Facebook post on 2 September, Ms Chappell said Mr Trump’s response was “beautiful” and asked that he attend her son’s funeral service.
“It would be such an honour to meet the real President of the United States of America, President Trump. I love you and America loves you,” she wrote.
Ms Chappell said her accounts had been “shadow-banned” after her profile was briefly disabled by Instagram. She urged others to share her message so that Mr Trump would see it.
“We express our deepest condolences to Ms Chappell and her family. Her tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies. While the post was not removed, her account was incorrectly deleted and we have since restored it,” Facebook to The Independent.
“It seems Instagram took it upon themselves to delete my account because I am assuming it was because I gained so many followers over my son’s death due to Biden's negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor,” Ms Chappell wrote in a Facebook post on 30 August in which she shared screenshots showing that her Instagram account had been disabled. “I’m gonna assume that Facebook is gonna delete me next! Funny how these leftist one-sided pieces of c**p don’t want the truth to come out!”
“Thank you Shana, our country loves you and especially loves your beautiful boy, Kareem,” Mr Trump said in a 6 September statement.
The Independent has reached out to the office of Mr Trump for comment.
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