The father of one of the Marines slain in a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during President Biden’s disastrous evacuation of Afghanistan told Fox News his outburst at the president’s State of the Union address last week was unplanned and that if the commander-in-chief wouldn’t speak his son’s name, someone did.
Steve Nikoui said he sat in the gallery at the State of the Union as a guest of Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., praying Biden would finally acknowledge his son’s name more than two years after the catastrophic withdrawal.
“I was looking at this spectacle that I was seeing below me, and I was listening to him, and I was praying, hoping that maybe at some point prior to this that he had mentioned Afghanistan [and] our kids, because all the Gold Star parents were thinking that that might be a possibility, and it wasn’t happening,” Nikoui said Monday on “Hannity.”
“And then as soon as he said something about kids and then something about being safe – I don’t even know what I did… I just jumped up, and I said, ‘Do you remember Abbey Gate?’ – It was like the Lord convicted me. The Holy Spirit got in me, and when I did it, I paused. I was like, ‘Oh, what did I do?’.”
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Nikoui was soon arrested after the outburst and charged with “crowd obstructing or incommoding.”
On “Hannity,” Nikoui said after he shouted about Abbey Gate, he called out his son’s name and rank, “because I’ve been waiting three years for this man (Biden) to say my son’s name in this chamber – and he never did.”
“But on this day – on this day – his name was said.”
During the State of the Union, Biden also received backlash for muffing up the name of Laken Riley, the Georgia student allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant. Biden instead referred to her as “Lincoln Riley,” the name of the University of Southern California’s football coach.
In regard to the servicemembers slain during the Afghan withdrawal, Biden also took heat in the immediate aftermath when he was filmed repeatedly checking his watch as the remains of the fallen were being offloaded at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
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On “Hannity,” Nikoui also criticized two then-top military officers, now-retired CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth Frank McKenzie and then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, indicating they will soon testify before Congress about the withdrawal and asking Americans to follow it.
In a press release, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, announced a March 19 hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Nikoui praised McCaul for his attention to Cpl. Nikoui’s death and those of the other servicemembers at Abbey Gate while indicating that four other lawmakers – Mast, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Michael Waltz, R-Fla. and Cory Mills, R-Fla. – are the “four horsemen” who have tried to keep attention on the loss of life during the evacuation.
Steve Nikoui shouts as US President Joe Biden speaks. (Shawn Thew via Getty )
Joining Nikoui on “Hannity,” Issa also condemned Biden, saying both himself and the corporal’s father have publicly uttered the names of the fallen more than their commander-in-chief.
“One of the reasons that there’s no closure is there’s never been a real acknowledgment by this president,” Issa said.
Issa criticized Biden for instead invoking the death of his eldest son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, during the State of the Union around the time he flubbed Riley’s name.
“He’ll talk about Beau’s death, but he won’t talk about these 13 [servicemembers] or how we keep it from happening again and again,” Issa said.
Host Sean Hannity also asked Nikoui about the 2022 death of Kareem Nikoui’s brother, who, while not a blood relative, had been in Steve Nikoui’s life since the boy was an infant.
Dakota Halverson was “devastated” by Kareem’s loss and took his own life at a California park that was to be named after the fallen Marine, Nikoui said.
“It’s been devastating for his mother. It’s been devastating for his siblings… and the effect of this president. Just like [former Trump speechwriter] Stephen Miller said — this is a reactionary president,” Nikoui said.
“The poor Riley family – they’re killing my kid, they’re killing their kid. And what are you going to do, America? You’re going to wait till they kill your kid? Because you know [Biden] is a bumper car hitting everything on his way out, and the only one that’s going to be left to pick up the pieces is us.”
In 2022, Cpl. Nikoui was also memorialized via a bill from Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., that renamed the Marine’s hometown post office in his honor.
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).