Morning Wire - Remembering Abbey Gate: A Gold Star Father’s Fight for Accountability | 8.31.24

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Three years after the attack at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan, Gold Star father Steve Nikoui speaks on his loss, his arrest at President Biden’s state of the union address and the compassion and respect he and others received from Donald Trump. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Balance of Nature: Get 35% off Your Order + FREE Fiber & Spice Supplements. Use promo code WIRE at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week marked three years since the fatal bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that left 13 American service members dead and grieving Gold Star families demanding answers from the Biden-Harris administration. One of the fathers, Steve Nekui, has been calling for transparency and accountability and was even arrested during President Biden's State of the Union address earlier this year. Year before I took office, murder race went up 30%. 30% they went up. The biggest increase in history. It was then. In this episode, we sit down with Nekui to discuss the three-year anniversary of the bombing of Abbey Gate and the difference between the responses of Biden, Harris, and Trump.

I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's August 31st, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. Hey, guys, producer Brandon here. Balance of Nature is my go-to source for whole food ingredients. Balance of Nature takes fruits and vegetables, they freeze-dry them, turn them into a powder, and then they put them into a capsule. The capsules are completely void of additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.

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President Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery to honor the 13 soldiers, one of them, your son who were killed at Abbey Gate. First, how do you feel about the fact that that ceremony took place and that President Trump was there? Yeah, thank you. You know, the fact that it took place,

in and of itself was a miracle. because that is the only time that any president or prior president or anybody high up in the executive branch that's ever paid any respects to our kids. So by him going there means a lot because he's the first one that's done it in the three years. And for it to be President Trump, that's even bigger because he's been an advocate for us. And he's been there for us since we started going to Washington in June of last year. Everything that's come out of Afghanistan is because of the Gold Star parents who've pressed members of Congress, Daryl Issa, you know, Chairman McCall, letting them know what they didn't know, what they didn't hear in the public, what they wouldn't hear from anyone else. And they would hear our stories, which are the truths.

And they'd be like, you are crazy. I can't believe this. And that's what led to all of these investigations. So since August 30th of last year, President Trump, you know, right after we spoke at Congress on the 29th, he invited us up to Betminster and solidified his commitment to helping us. And we've been to several rallies. We've had a few roundtables talking about this. And he's been our champion the whole way.

Now, earlier this year, you were famously arrested at the state of the union for calling out, remember Abbey Gate. The DC AG decided to not pursue charges, thankfully. Have you had any further response from the White House? Any more transparency offered since that moment? No. And what I said there was, do you remember Abbey Gate? And then I said United States Marines Corps. And then I said my son's name, which was Kareem M. Kuhi.

and then I said second battalion first Marine, which was his unit. And no, I had not gotten, they wouldn't want to talk to me. They didn't reach out to me. The sergeant of arms knew I was a Gold Star father from Afghanistan. Saw me when I was pulled out of row seven in the hallway. Saw me there. After they took me down in the basement, he followed me down and basically gave, as I recall, a thumbs down to the Capitol

Police, meaning, you know, arrest him. So he fully knew who I was and intentionally and deliberately arrested me. And their premise was that I resisted arrest. And if you're arrested, they either paper it or they don't paper it. And if they don't paper it, that means that they're not going to press

charges. I didn't find out it wasn't papered until the day of my court. You know, I called up or a Zoom call to the courthouse in Washington, D.C., and waited to get my name. kept waiting and finally said, all right, these names are not going to be papered and my name was called. So not only did they, they didn't want to press charges, but they made sure that that steam, that that hurt lasted, you know, and impacted as much as it could.

You know, they arrested me. The president could have brought me in a back room, you know, said, hey, what are your grievances? What's going on? Instead, they arrested me. And they couldn't have arrested me because they had no grounds because they said I was resisting arrest. you look at the videos, I walked to them. I mean, I had never had contact with them before. So they intentionally did that just to hurt me as much as they could. And then to add insult to injury, they had no intentions on ever papering it, but waited the whole three weeks until my

court case came up for them to let me know that it wasn't going to be papered. Now, President Biden infamously said that no troops had died on his watch during that presidential debate that ended up being the nail in the coffin of his attempt at a second term, what was your response to those comments from Biden? You know what? I'm glad he said that. Because just as you said, that was a nail in the coffin that ended his second presidential term. And it wasn't anything surprising. And that's what we've heard. And that's what we've dealt with for the last three years. So for me, that was like every day. But to the rest of America, for them to finally see what we had

been talking about and letting people know what has been going on for America to see that was huge because finally they're like, all right, they're right. You know, he does deny their sacrifice and their service. And once again, he was able to honor his son there. So I don't know if he uses his platform just to honor Bo who died while he was a lawyer wearing a suit and tie every day as opposed to my son, who was a combat-ready Marine ready to fight, who was going through HIV applicant and handling people that weren't able to cross the line, take them back over, and et cetera, et cetera. So that was the way it is.

Now, President Biden did tweet out the names of the fallen soldiers from Abbey Gate. What's your response to that? Does that help at all? How does that make you feel? Look, it does help. I'm not going to sit here and ridicule him. Finally, he did it. I'm getting goosebumps, and I'm glad he did it.

And he did the right thing. If that's what he did, then even more so, we won, right? Because that's all I wanted at the state of the union, for my kid's name to be said there. It didn't matter if it was him or whoever. My kid's name was said, and for him to finally, after three years, to say my son's name, that's a victory for me. And I'm not going to downplay it or say it's too little too late. He did it, and I appreciate that, you know, but I wish he would have done it on his first state of the union. I wish he would have done it the very first night that this happened.

And then, I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Kamala Harris is now the Democratic presidential nominee, of course. Do you feel any more confident that she might show more respect or appreciation for the military than President Biden? Oh, absolutely not. She won't show any respect for the military because she hasn't done anything. She hasn't shown it yet. Those aren't in her interest, you know. There's the same person who, a couple months after, I remember she was busing in child actors

and setting up what was to look like, you know, kids that had won their way to go to the White House to speak with the vice president, which also was all just staged. They bust in child actors and all the questions that they had were not, Organic questions from young kids that had won a way to go to the White House and talk to the vice president. It was all staged and scripted. And that's what they do. I don't even know if she's even in control of anything or if she's just a puppet. But she doesn't do any interviews.

That tells us that she doesn't have any real policy. She doesn't discuss any policy. You know, it's just a lot of showboating and salesmanship on her speeches and everything. So, no, I think it would even be worse. I think whoever was driving the Biden administration is definitely going to be driving the Kamala Harris administration, and I think it would be way worse. One of the lines of attack from Democrats against President Trump is that he supposedly disrespected the military at one point. What have you seen from him in terms of his approach to people who have served and are currently serving? I've heard these things, but you know what, I take it with a grain of salt because I also heard about, you know,

Russian Gate, and I heard about the things that happened in his impeachment. And from my experience, being a gold star father, none of that. Remember, Donald J. Trump was the only one who last August 30th took us to Betminster. The president of the United States, which is the highest government official, he was the only one that ever honored us and listened to us and let us talk about our kids individually with him and promised, you know, I. I'm going to be here for you. When I get in the White House, we're going to honor him the right way.

We're going to honor him at the White House. And now remember, last August, he was not a popular guy. This was literally like three days after he got arrested. His mugshot that came out. The media didn't even think that he was going to be a challenge to running in 2024 at that point. They thought that all these court cases and jail and the mugshot would do him in. But he was there for us, you know. And he's like, hey, when I get back in the White House, I'm going to honor your kids at the White House.

He says, hey, you know, here, Bedminster is beautiful. And I can take you to Marlaco, but this needs to be done in the White House. And that was awesome. So invited us for the last year, any rallies that you want to go to, just let us know, we'll fly you there. It's unimaginable to have a president be so invested in the people like that. It was just, it's unimaginable. I saw him, I talked to him and met with him a week before he got shot in Pennsylvania at Temple University. He did a rally out there, invited us out there.

I had a picture of my son. He signed it, asked him to sign it. And, man, just unwavering. Everything he told us a year earlier, the same thing. I'm here for you. And, you know, it's a tragedy would happen. Let's just keep the fight. So, yeah, that hasn't been my experience at all.

One more question. What would you like people to think about? remember on this anniversary of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and Abigate? You know, I want people to remember that our lifestyle is not free. You know, policemen and firemen are great, but they protect us from each other. Our military protects us from the world. And we wouldn't be able to have anything that we have. It wasn't for our military. And we're at the lowest enlistment rate that we've ever been at. And that's because of what happened in Afghanistan and what happened in the rest of the world from Afghanistan, like Ukraine

and Israel and what's going on with Hezbollah. This all stems from the weakness of our withdrawal from Afghanistan. We showed weakness. The world takes over and profits off that weakness. So that's the first thing. I want them to know that, look, this is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. this is an American issue. We need enlisted soldiers, one. And then two, to think about the things that these kids see and to think about the 22 service members that commit suicide every day. You know, a lot of kids saw horrible things over there at Abbey Gate,

and they're alive, and a lot of them are committing suicides because they can't reconcile what they've seen and what they've witnessed and then come back over here into society and try to fit in. So I think probably the most important thing is the enlistment numbers and the suicide numbers. Somehow we've got to work through these two. Well, thank you for being such a powerful, passionate voice on this. And thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. God bless you, man.

I appreciate you. You too. Thank you so much, Steve. That was Gold Star Father Steve Nekui, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.