Family of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Says Meeting with Biden Felt “Scripted and Fake” – Father Said He Had No Desire to Meet President

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Rylee McCollum
Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, who was just 20 years old at the time of his death, lost his life from a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last week along with twelve other members of the U.S. military.

DOVER, DE – President Joe Biden was criticized by the family of a U.S. Marine who lost his life from a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last week. The family, who claimed that a meeting they had with the Commander-in-Chief felt “fake” and “scripted” and that a “total disregard” was shown to their family member’s death.

Biden had been scheduled to meet with the families of the 13 U.S. service members who had lost their lives in the Kabul bombings while attending the “dignified transfer” of their remains from Afghanistan to Dover, Delaware for burial on Sunday.

Among those who perished in the bombing was Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, who was just 20 years old at the time of his death. Originally several members of McCollum’s family were set to meet with Biden in Dover, but his father eventually pulled out. Roice McCollum, one of the fallen Marine’s sisters, would later state to the media that they had refused to speak with Biden because they hold the president responsible for his death.

Only McCollum’s pregnant widow, Jiennah, went through with the meeting with Biden, but left after just a brief period of time and was reportedly frustrated by her interaction with the president.

Later, Roice recounted Jiennah’s description of the meeting, stating that Biden felt “fake” and “scripted” and that he spent most of the meeting talking about his late son Beau, his service in Iraq, and later passing from cancer; Biden had mentioned Beau during his nationally televised speech on Tuesday to mark the completion of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

In regards to McCollum’s death, however, Roice said that Biden allegedly showed a “total disregard to the loss of our Marine” during the conversation.

“You can’t f**k up as bad as he did and say you’re sorry,” she said of the Afghanistan pullout. “This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands.”

McCollum’s father, Jim, and two sisters, Roice and Cheyenne, were later interviewed by Fox News, where the elder McCollum stated why exactly he had refused to speak with Biden in Dover on Sunday.

“I went to a separate room…I had no desire to meet with the president,” Jim McCollum said. “The way he has handled this, everything he’s done, every step along the way has been absolutely backwards. I don’t understand the process of how they came to the decisions that they made. A high school kid could make better decisions than they made in this.”

According to Fox News, some of the Gold Star families also criticized the President for continually checking his watch in front of the grieving families with the American flag draped caskets.

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