The mother of a U.S. Marine killed during the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has spoken out after her exwas arrested for heckling President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address on Thursday, RadarOnline.com has learned.
"I was shocked because I thought it was complete BS that they arrested him," Shana Chappell, 51, told the New York Post. "He shouldn't have been arrested, he's a Gold Star father. He's in the same room as the man that he knows is responsible for our son's death, so why was he arrested?"
"I obviously didn't watch the State of the Union because I have a bad taste for Biden, but then all of a sudden, I started getting text messages from friends who said [he] got arrested,” Chappell said. "They sent me videos of him yelling out United States Marine Kareem Nikoui and then getting arrested."
Steve Nikoui, 51, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of crowding, obstructing, or incommoding after repeatedly yelling "Abbey Gate" during the president's speech. Abbey Gate is the entrance to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan where a 2021 suicide bombing killed 170 civilians and 13 U.S. service members including Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui.
"This is a routine charge on Capitol Hill," United States Capitol Police told the New York Times. "People who illegally demonstrate/disrupt Congress typically are released after they pay a $50 fine, so the misdemeanor charge is resolved without going to court."
Nikoui, who had attended the State of the Union as a guest of Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) before being escorted from the House Galleries and taken into custody, has been a vocal critic of Biden since the death of his son.
Chappell said she "absolutely" blames Biden for the deaths of her son Kareem and his brother Dakota Halverson, who died by suicide near a memorial for his sibling in 2022.
"To me, accountability would be this administration being gone – not in there anymore," she added. "The military advisers gone, not in there anymore. That, to me, is accountability. Are we going to get that? No, so then I'd like to see people lose their jobs. I'd like to see military advisers losing their jobs over this."
"The first thing I would ask him is why he hasn’t ever said our fallen 13 heroes' names?" Chappell said of Biden. "How come he's never talked about any of them? Why has he made a point to avoid saying their names?"
"Honestly, I think he's a failure, he's destroying our country," she continued. "He's done no good for our country in any way, shape or form. All he does is spill lies out of his mouth, trying to convince people he’s doing a great job when the proof is he's doing a horrible job. We've got wide-open borders, we've got more homeless people than ever, crime higher than it’s ever been, inflation – he's destroying our country."
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Chappell, who split from Nikoui in 2022 after 27 years of marriage, said she plans to vote for Donald Trump in November.