President Donald Trump doubled down on his condemnation of Biden-era Afghan refugee vetting policies Thursday at the White House, asking a reporter who insisted all migrants were “vetted” if she was “stupid.”
The remark came on the same day as the death of one of the two National Guard troops from West Virginia shot Wednesday in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan refugee who worked with a CIA-backed counter-terrorism unit in Kandahar.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was shot and arrested at the scene. He reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is the greatest” in Arabic, after the attack.
He now faces murder charges after one of the two Guard members he shot, U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, died on Thursday.
The killing has reignited fears that the Biden administration did a poor job of vetting Afghans brought into the country in the wake of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
UPDATE: DHS confirms my reporting that the suspect is an Afghan national who entered the US on 9/8/2021 as part of the Biden admin’s Operation Allies Welcome.https://t.co/5KR0z6oaP8
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 27, 2025
The shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, and Trump quickly promised to scrutinize “every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, meanwhile, said that immigration requests for Afghan nationals had been “stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”
However, while the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan four years ago was being put under a microscope because of Wednesday’s events, many in the establishment media insisted that the immigrants had been vetted. It was an insistence that arose during a Trump media briefing from Mar-a-Lago on Thanksgiving.
During part of the briefing, CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes alleged that the suspect “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.”
He added that the chaos of the Afghan withdrawal made it impossible for effective vetting.
“This is part of the horrendous airlift from Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into our Country totally unvetted and unchecked. We will fix it, but will never forget what Crooked Joe Biden and his Thugs did to our Country!” – President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/vAkEyrIo4o
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 28, 2025
“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.”
However, Cordes said that the inspector general for the Department of Justice “just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S., so why do you blame the Biden administration for what this man did?”
“Because they let them in!” he snapped, his voice rising. “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.”
He emphasized that the Biden withdrawal didn’t follow a plan developed during the first Trump administration for ending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
“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.”
🚨 HOLY CRAP! President Trump goes BERSERK on the fake news 🔥🔥
“Why are you blaming Biden?! [for the DC National Guard attack]”
TRUMP: “Are you a STUPID PERSON?”
“Because they LET HIM IN. Are you STUPID? They came on a plane with THOUSANDS who shouldn’t be here. And you’re… pic.twitter.com/5ucQBNjbLr
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 28, 2025
Even if Lakanwal was vetted, concerns still remain about the individuals let into America from Afghanistan under the Biden administration.
A 2022 report from the Pentagon’s inspector general found that at least 50 individuals brought over posed “potentially significant security concerns,” with 28 of them unable to be located.
“Significant security concerns include individuals whose latent fingerprints have been found on improvised explosive devices and known or suspected terrorists,” the report read.
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