As part of a Thanksgiving call with US troops, Trump announced that he had just learned that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had died while Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life”.
“She’s just passed away,” he said. “She’s no longer with us. She’s looking down at us right now. Her parents are with her [body].”
Trump called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”
The White House said he spoke to her parents after his remarks.
Trump used the announcement to say the shooting was a “terrorist attack” and criticised the Biden administration for enabling Afghans who worked with US forces during the Afghanistan War to enter the country.
The president has deployed National Guard members in part to assist in his administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Trump brandished a print-out of a news photo of Afghan evacuees sitting on the floor of a military plane during the chaotic evacuation from Kabul in 2021 during his remarks.
He suggested that the shooter was mentally unstable after the war and departure from Afghanistan.
“He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts,” the president said. “It happens too often with these people.”
The shooter worked with US forces in Afghanistan.
The suspect charged with the shooting is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.
The suspect had worked in a special CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before emigrating from Afghanistan, according to two sources and #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the United States during the two-decade war.
Trump blamed the asylum process in which Afghans who worked with US forces arrived by plane for being ineffective and failing to ensure people were properly vetted.
“We have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country,” Trump said. “For the most part, we don’t want them.” (AP)
