Republican voters flatlined after President Biden claimed that no troops have died under his watch – failing to acknowledge the service men and women who have died during his administration.
During a Fox News Digital focus group, Republicans, Democrats and Independents used dials to react live to President Biden’s claim during the presidential debate that no troops died under his watch.
“When he was president, they were still killing people in Afghanistan,” Biden said, referring to former President Donald Trump. “And he didn’t do anything about that.”
“When he was president, we were finding ourselves in a position where you had a notion that we were this safe country,” Biden said. “The truth is, I’m the only president this century, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.”
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US President Joe Biden speaks as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at CNN’s studios in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27, 2024. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
After his statement about the former president’s loss of military lives in Afghanistan, Democrats in the focus group reacted positively.
Republicans and Independents reacted negatively, with the dial line plummeting.
Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz in Kabul, Afghanistan the day he was killed by a suicide bomb attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport. (Mark Schmitz)
Biden’s statement failed to acknowledge the 13 fallen service members who were killed during his administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal in Aug. 2021.
Thirteen U.S. service members, including 11 Marines, one Army special operations soldier, and one Navy corpsman, were killed in the bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
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In Jan. 2024, U.S. Central Command confirmed that three U.S. service members were killed and at least 25 others were injured in a drone attack on an outpost in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border.
Two U.S. Navy SEALs, identified as Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Navy Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, died while conducting a weapons transfer from Iran to Houthi rebels off the coast of Somalia.
MH-60S Seahawk helicopter performing routine flight operation, Atlantic Ocean, July 4, 2018. Five soliders died in a helicopter crash in Nov. 2023. (Image courtesy Petty Officer 3rd Class Thomas Gooley / USS Harry S Truman. Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Other U.S. service members have also died abroad in training incidents.
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Five soldiers died in a helicopter crash in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in November 2023 during a routine refueling mission, and eight U.S. airmen died in a CV-22 Osprey crash in November 2023 in Yakushima Island, Japan.
