Trump Snaps at Reporter Who Repeatedly Insists All Afghan Refugees Are Vetted: ‘Are You Stupid?’

President Donald J. Trump did not mince words Thursday while addressing the national outcry over Biden-era Afghan refugee vetting failures — asking a reporter who repeatedly insisted that all Afghan migrants were “vetted” whether she was “stupid.”

The exchange came on the same day that one of the two ambushed National Guard troops from West Virginia succumbed to her injuries. The troops were shot Wednesday in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan refugee who previously served in a CIA-backed counter-terrorism unit in Kandahar.

The alleged gunman, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was shot and arrested at the scene. According to reports, he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” meaning “God is the greatest” in Arabic, after opening fire. He now faces murder charges following the Thursday death of U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom.

The killing has reignited widespread concern that the Biden administration recklessly imported thousands of Afghans after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal — without proper vetting protocols to protect the American public.

Authorities are investigating the shooting as a potential act of terrorism. In response, President Trump vowed to scrutinize “every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.” Around the same time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that immigration requests for Afghan nationals had been “stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

Despite the clear national security implications, many establishment media figures continued to push the narrative that Afghan arrivals were vetted appropriately. That same talking point surfaced during a Thanksgiving press briefing from Mar-a-Lago — where CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes argued that the suspected shooter “was vetted and the vetting came up clean.”

“He went cuckoo,” the president said. “I mean, he went nuts. It happens too often with these people. You see them.”

Referencing the chaotic military exit botched under Biden, he said the situation made real screening impossible.

“There was no vetting or anything,” Trump said.
“They came in unvetted and we have a lot of others in this country, and we’re going to get them out.”

Cordes persisted, citing a report from the Department of Justice inspector general claiming “thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI” for Afghans brought to the U.S. Then she asked why the president blamed the Biden administration for the shooting.

“Because they let them in!” Trump snapped, raising his voice. “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here, and you’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

President Trump went on to underscore that the Biden withdrawal ignored a structured exit plan developed during his first term.

“The whole Afghanistan situation was a mess. It should’ve never taken place,” he added. “If we’re going to go out, and we would’ve gone out because I had everybody ready to go, we were going to go out with strength and dignity and precision.”

Even setting aside the D.C. terror investigation, concerns remain about the individuals brought into the country through Biden’s improvised evacuation. A 2022 Pentagon inspector general report revealed that at least 50 Afghans admitted to the U.S. posed “potentially significant security concerns” — and 28 of them couldn’t even be located afterward.

“Significant security concerns include individuals whose latent fingerprints have been found on improvised explosive devices and known or suspected terrorists,” the report read.