Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., told Newsmax Friday that President Joe Biden's treatment of the gold star families who lost loved ones during a suicide bomber attack in Afghanistan two years ago is "insulting" and a "stab in the heart."
"Joe Biden, admit your mistakes, take responsibility, and promise [gold star families] that this is never going to happen again," Waltz said during "Eric Bolling The Balance" Friday. "But instead, you have Biden in the White House, saying, No, no, this was an outstanding success, and that's ... a stab in the heart for these gold star families."
During the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, a suicide bomber attacked and killed 13 U.S. service members at the Kabul airport.
Their family members are demanding transparency and answers regarding the attack from the administration but have been "stonewalled."
"I'm asking them to release the truth," Cheryl Rex, who lost her son Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola in the attack, told ABC News. "We've been lied to from the beginning. They have covered everything up even down to the locations where our children were placed."
Waltz, who sits on the House Foreign Relations Committee, said the families participated in a forum this week asking the military and administration to release the information about the attack.
"These families know that their loved ones shouldn't be dead right now, that they should be with them, that it was incompetence that led to the Abbey Gate bombing," Waltz said, "that the sniper at Abbey Gate had the shot on the suicide bomber and was denied permission, that we had multiple opportunities to take them out with airstrikes, but they were denied."
He said that the way Biden and his administration have treated the families in the wake of the attack is "unacceptable."
"What's so upsetting is that they still can't get a straight answer on how their loved ones died," he said. "They keep getting conflicting reports. Some of them don't even have all of their loved ones' personal effects back yet."
Waltz said there are still more than 85,000 Afghan allies in the country that are in grave danger for helping the United States during the war.
"We still have 85,000 of our allies that stood and fought with us or being hunted down by the Taliban as we speak," he said. "I think the terrorists didn't get the memo that Joe Biden decided the war was over. ISIS and al-Qaida are rebuilding this terrorist state that the Taliban now runs — except now they have $8 billion of American-made armor, weapons, and equipment."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.