Joe Biden kept the grieving relatives of the Marines killed in Afghanistan waiting for three hours while he napped on Air Force One on the tarmac before a dignified transfer, multiple military families have told Daily Mail.
The shocking allegation comes today amid growing calls for the Biden administration to be investigated over its scandalous cover-up of the president’s ailing health.
Biden, it has emerged, has not been present for key moments of his presidency, nor has he been involved in major decisions like the disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Instead, an unknown team of handlers made the decision to hastily pull out of the region, triggering an onslaught of panic and a rush of Afghans and foreign citizens to Kabul Airport.
On August 26, a Taliban suicide bomber capitalized on the busy crowds, killing 13 US Servicemembers and over 170 Afghans.
While Biden was absent from the withdrawal planning, he did show up to greet the caskets of the US Servicemen and woman who were killed, infamously checking his watch on the tarmac before their coffins were brought out.
It was his second insult to their families that day, according to the sister of Rylee McCollum, one of the men who died.
‘(Biden) made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he couldn’t pull it together,’ Roice McCollum told DailyMail.com.
Grieving military families claimed President Biden kept them waiting for three hours while he napped on Air Force One on the tarmac before the dignified transfer of their loves ones’ remains. He is seen emerging from the aircraft to greet the bodies on August 29, 2021
It was the same ceremony where Biden infamously checked his watch while the bodies were being prepared
The casket of a marine who lost their life in the Kabul Airport bombing is seen being carried at the dignified transfer, where families have told DailyMail.com they were kept waiting for hours for Biden to ‘get it together’
Roice said she and others were waiting for Biden to appear when a military officer told her he was napping on his plane.
Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, and Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, who were also killed in the Kabul blast, told DailyMail.com that their families were also left waiting on the tarmac.
‘We sat in that office for what seemed like an eternity waiting on the doddering old fool,’ Hoover recalled.
The White House denied the families’ claims.
A spokesperson told Daily Mail: ‘That claim is untrue. As President Biden said on the 4th anniversary of the tragic attack on Abbey Gate and in the letters he wrote to family members after meeting with them in Dover, ‘these 13 Americans—and the many more that were wounded—were patriots in the highest sense’ and ‘we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill.’
‘The President honors these families, who have given more to their nation than anyone ever could, and holds them in the highest regard’
Summing up the experience that day, Roice said Biden ‘was far beyond a position where he should have been in office, but the powers that be covered it up. We were left in the dark – worse than that, we were blatantly lied to.’
The sister of marine Rylee McCollum (pictured), who was killed in the Kabul Airport suicide bombing in August 2021, said President Biden kept grieving military families waiting for over three hours during the dignified transfer because he had to nap
Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of marine Sgt. Nicole Gee (pictured) who was also killed in the Kabul blast, said when she met Biden in 2021: ‘One of the biggest shocks for me was meeting a Commander-in-Chief who was clearly not well or fit for the position he was in’
Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover (pictured) who was also killed in the withdrawal, told DailyMail.com that the way the White House handled the crisis ‘is nothing short of seditious and treacherous’
Now, the families are demanding answers as to who exactly planned the withdrawal – and why America has been lied to for years about it.
Rylee was 20 when he died in a Taliban suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul, and was just weeks away from the birth of his first child.
A Wall Street Journal expose this week claimed Biden was too out-of-it to understand the potential bloodshed an Afghan withdrawal could cause.
The report detailed several instances when the oldest president in US history struggled with the day-to-day ordeals of the presidency, including claims Biden couldn’t even repeat back to his staff lines they fed him while preparing for his interview with a special counsel.
The McCollum family is not alone in feeling that President Biden’s ailing health let her and her family down, with Shambling also saying she knew Biden ‘was clearly not well’ the moment she met him at the dignified transfer.
‘One of the biggest shocks for me was meeting a Commander-in-Chief who was clearly not well or fit for the position he was in.’
The 13 US Service members were killed when a suicide bomber targeted Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport, where hundreds were desperately trying to flee Afghanistan, along with the US Army, before the Taliban took over
Rylee McCollum was among 13 members of the US military, and a total of 182 victims, who lost their lives in a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021 (pictured)
A White House National Security spokesperson said in a statement to DailyMail.com that the claim President Biden was napping and kept the families waiting is ‘untrue.’
‘As President Biden said on the 4th anniversary of the tragic attack on Abbey Gate and in the letters he wrote to family members after meeting with them in Dover, ‘these 13 Americans—and the many more that were wounded—were patriots in the highest sense’ and ‘we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill,” the statement read.
‘The President honors these families, who have given more to their nation than anyone ever could, and holds them in the highest regard.’
At the dignified transfer of marines including Rylee McCollum who died in the Kabul airport bombing, Biden angered many as he was seen continually checking his watch as others paid their respects.
The McCollum family never heard from the Biden administration again, she says.
‘It’s very frustrating that this investigation is being done at the end of his term when it very clearly should have been from the start,’ she told DailyMail.com.
‘The American people deserve to know what is going on with our commander in chief. (Biden) was still showing up to do the job in whatever capacity he was able to do, and it was his call, according to the generals, to withdraw from Afghanistan.’
DailyMail.com has contacted the White House for a comment.
The frantic withdrawal of US troops from the nation’s longest running war drew international condemnation, including a stunning security lapse in the days after that allowed at least 65 known Afghan terrorists to slip into the US through lax vetting processes.
The Washington Post report also noted that in a follow-up interview after the Afghanistan withdrawal, Biden didn’t even remember in prep sessions that he had been shown his own handwritten memo arguing against increasing the US military’s presence in region.
The frantic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was marred by scenes of desperate Afghani civilians fleeing (pictured) – and revelations that at least 65 known Afghan terrorists slipped through lax vetting processes
Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover who was also killed in the withdrawal, told DailyMail.com that the way the White House handled the crisis ‘is nothing short of seditious and treacherous.’
‘We have known that he was pretty much MIA during the drawdown of Afghanistan. He refused to take the advice of his military leaders as they have stated in their testimonies before Congress and we have found out that Secretary Blinken was also MIA during those days leading up to the bombing’ at Kabul Airport, he said.
‘The ultimate responsibility rest squarely on the shoulders of the President. Now if the President was not answering his phone or taking advice from anyone, who really made the final decision to go through with the withdrawal?’
‘Biden is just a figurehead and everyone has been covering for him. They should all be jailed for this!! And I fully believe our kids would still be here had it not been for the stumbling, bumbling old fool occupying the White House.
‘The blood of our 13 and those 45 wounded in that bombing, along with 170 injured is on the hands of Biden.’
Insiders alleged to the Journal that Biden was insulated by a small cabal of aides who kept his decline a secret from even top Washington lawmakers, however McCollum said the buck still stops with the Oval Office.
‘Kamala Harris is obviously the last person in that room, as she always likes to point out, but he was our commander in chief, so the blame has to be on him,’ she said.
‘The problem is a bigger structural problem in our government. There were many people royally screwed up their jobs.
‘The damage is done from Biden. I want accountability in our government, and in the media that lied for him.’
One of those who expressed their frustrations to the Post was Rep. Adam Smith, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee at the time of the withdrawal.
Smith claimed he tried to raise the alarm even before troops began to be withdrawn, but couldn’t even get Biden on the phone before the disastrous pull-out stunned the world.
Rep. Adam Smith, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee during the Afghanistan crisis, said in a bombshell report this week that he was essentially ignored when he tried to warn Biden the withdrawal would be a disaster
And after the withdrawal – which was marred by scenes of desperate Afghanis clinging to US military planes and tragedies including the Kabul airport blast – Smith said he only heard from the White House after making a critical comment to a newspaper.
‘The Biden White House was more insulated than most,’ Smith said. ‘I spoke with Barack Obama on a number of occasions when he was president and I wasn’t even chairman of the committee.’
Shamblin said she realized Biden was not in a good state when she met him soon after the tragic Kabul airport bombing.
‘And that was 3 years ago,’ she added.
‘I’m beyond grateful that the American people saw past all the lies and believed their own eyes.
‘The failure of elected and appointed officials to raise the flag of alarm is not without notice.’
Shamblin said she would also personally like an apology from his former press secretary Jen Psaki ‘for calling us liars in her book.’
‘I think the more these facts come out the more Americans will understand they were lied to purposely for the last 4 years on even the most basic facts,’ she continued.
‘President Biden was not fit for office and it’s sad he did not have someone to speak up earlier.’
