Trump claimed no U.S. troops died in Afghanistan for 18 months. Here’s a fact check.

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Trump claimed no U.S. troops ***** in Afghanistan for 18 months. Here’s a fact check.

Former President Donald Trump in the last two months has repeatedly

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on the campaign trail that there was an 18-month ******* when he was in office during which no service members ***** in combat in Afghanistan. 

While Department of Defense data shows there was an 18-month stretch in which no U.S. service members were ******* in combat in Afghanistan, Trump was not in office for all of this time. 

The *********** presidential candidate originally made this claim

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, but has recently repeated the assertion multiple times as the U.S. marked three years since the August 2021 Abbey Gate ******** ******** at Hamid Karzai International Airport. A lone ISIS-K ******** bomber ******* 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghans during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan months after President Biden took office.

“When I left office, we had not lost a single service member in combat in Afghanistan in more than 18 months,” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina on Aug. 23.

“We didn’t lose one person in 18 months, and then they took over that disaster,” Trump said in a campaign video posted to

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on Aug. 28. Trump’s voice-over played over footage of him interacting with Gold Star families during his recent controversial trip to Arlington National *********, which garnered a rare rebuke from the U.S Army. The video has since garnered around 11.8 million views. The original sound on the video, which sampled a song by Bon Iver and St. Vincent, has since been removed.

According to government data from the

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, there was no 18-month ******* that occurred entirely under Trump’s presidency in which there were no deaths in combat, or “hostile” deaths, in Afghanistan.

The last service members ******* in combat in Afghanistan during Trump’s tenure were Sgt. 1st Class Javier Jaguar Gutierrez and Sgt. 1st Class Antonio Rey Rodriguez, who ***** on

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. Later that month, Trump and the Taliban

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which excluded the Afghan government that called for U.S. forces to leave the country by May 1, 2021. 

Afterwards, there was a roughly 18-month stretch from March 2020 to late August 2021 during which no U.S. service members ***** in Afghanistan. Trump was in office for roughly 11 months of this time *******, and Mr. Biden was in office for the final seven months. 

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request to clarify the discrepancy. 

From the time Mr. Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021, there were no combat deaths reported until after U.S. forces began their withdrawal from America’s longest war, a plan set in motion by Trump before leaving office. 

In the last full 18 months of Trump’s presidency, starting in July 2019, there were 12 combat deaths reported in Afghanistan. Throughout Trump’s entire term,

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were reported in Afghanistan.

Throughout the 20-year war in Afghanistan that began after ********** attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, over 1,900 service members are

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as “hostile deaths” stemming from combat operations under

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and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. In total, 2,459 ********* troops were ******* during the operations. 

Laura Doan

Laura Doan is a fact checker for CBS News Confirmed. She covers misinformation, AI and social media.

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#Trump #claimed #U.S #troops #***** #Afghanistan #months #Heres #fact #check

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