Support for Biden among Republicans was dampened after President Biden insisted that no soldiers had been killed under his administration and refused to acknowledge the existence of military personnel who had died under his administration.
In a Fox News Digital focus group, Republicans, Democrats and independents responded live from viewers to President Biden’s claim during the presidential debate that no soldiers had been killed under his command.
“When he was president, people were still being killed in Afghanistan,” Biden said of former President Donald Trump, “and he did nothing about it.”
“When he was president, we thought our country was safe,” Biden said. “The truth is, I’m the only president in this century, this decade, who hasn’t had soldiers killed anywhere in the world like he has.”
CNN Breaking News: Trump Wins Clearly in Presidential Debate: ‘Stunning Numbers’
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at the first presidential debate for the 2024 election with former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the CNN studios in Atlanta, Georgia on June 27, 2024. (Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Democrats in the focus group reacted favorably after the former president’s remarks about the loss of military lives in Afghanistan.
Republicans and independents reacted negatively, and his approval rating plummeted.
Corporal Jared Schmitz on the day he was killed in a suicide bomb attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Mark Schmitz)
Biden’s statement did not mention the 13 service members who died during the administration’s August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport killed 13 U.S. military personnel, including 11 Marines, one Army Special Operations soldier and one Navy medic.
Trump slams Biden as ‘incompetent’ for not firing generals after failed Afghan withdrawal
January 2024, U.S. Central Command Three US soldiers have been killed and at least 25 wounded in a drone attack on a military outpost in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, the US military said.
Two U.S. Navy SEALs, Naval Special Warfare Engineer 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Naval Special Warfare Engineer 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, were killed while transporting weapons from Iran to Houthi rebels off the coast of Somalia.
An MH-60S Seahawk helicopter performs a routine flight over the Atlantic Ocean on July 4, 2018. In November 2023, five soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash. (Image by Petty Officer 3rd Class Thomas Gooley/USS Harry S. Truman. Photo by Smith Collection/Gadot/Getty Images)
Other U.S. soldiers have been killed in training accidents overseas.
Click here to get the FOX News app
In November 2023, a helicopter crashed during a routine refueling mission in the eastern Mediterranean, killing five soldiers, and in November 2023, a CV-22 Osprey crashed on the Japanese island of Yakushima, killing eight U.S. Air Force soldiers.
