WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Saturday that her Republican rival Donald Trump “disrespected sacred ground” at a US military cemetery during a contentious pre-election visit. Trump’s visit to the hallowed Arlington National Cemetery- apparently a quick way to garner votes ahead of the November 5 ballot- has blown out into a very public row engulfing the candidates and the military. 

“Let me be clear: the former president disgraced hallowed ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris said of Monday’s incident at the cemetery outside Washington where Trump broke the rules and took pictures with relatives of US service members who died in Afghanistan. In one, he is posing among headstones, grinning broadly and giving a thumbs-up while standing with family members of a fallen Marine.

“If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude,” Harris wrote on X.On Thursday, the US Army issued a rare statement confirming a cemetery staff member had been “abruptly pushed aside” after asking Trump’s team to stop filming in a burial section for those killed in recent wars, where photography for political purposes is banned.

Trump’s re-election team counter-attacked, referring to the employee as a “despicable individual” who was having a “mental health episode.” However, the military countered that the staff member had “acted professionally,” denouncing the incident as “unfortunate.”

Trump has criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the US retreat from Afghanistan, a keynote of his campaign, arguing he would have managed it better. He visited a cemetery with the families of some of the 13 service members killed in a 2021 bombing in Kabul during the last chaotic hours of the US withdrawal.

Trump’s relationship with the military has long been a flashpoint for controversy. While he regularly touted himself as a staunch supporter of the armed forces, he privately mocked the war dead as president and didn’t want to be seen near military amputees, his former chief of staff has said.

Harris’s blunt rejoinder Saturday about the cemetery incident seemed to underscore her determination to take the fight directly to Trump in what is shaping up to be a brutal presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris’s name, intelligence, appearance, and racial identity. At the same time, the Harris campaign has shot back that the former president is “weird,” an aspiring dictator, and “out of his mind.”

Harris earlier took withering criticism over the cemetery incident from Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, who has launched a series of fierce attacks against the vice president. Responding to a mistaken report that Harris had already reacted to the cemetery visit, Vance accused her of feigning outrage and said: “She can go to hell.”

“Don’t focus on Donald Trump showing up to grieve with some people who lost their children. Focus on your job. Don’t do this fake outrage thing,” he told the Washington Post. By then, Harris had yet to mention the cemetery visit publicly.