INTERVIEW: "Promises made, promises kept": Inside the Gold Star families' meeting with President Trump

For the first time since the Islamic suicide attack that killed 13 American service members in Afghanistan, their relatives met with the President of the United States in the White House.

While President Donald Trump has met with the families whose loved ones were killed at Abbey Gate on multiple occasions in between his time in office, he and his administration invited the families for a commemoration of the four-year anniversary of the attack.

During the meeting, the families met with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Veteran Affairs Doug Collins, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, one of the 13 servicemembers who was killed on August 26th, 2021, exclusively spoke with the Washington Reporter about the meeting with the president.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, other than that we are in one of the most hallowed and recognizable houses in the world, but to be able to meet President Trump in that office was something that I’ll never forget,” Hoover said.

For years, Trump has met with Hoover and his fellow Gold Star family members, especially those in the Abbey Gate Coalition — a subset of those who lost loved ones at Abbey Gate; members of that coalition addressed the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) to great fanfare in the summer of 2024.

Hoover had met with Trump, Vance, and Hegseth before — and in fact, had led a group of Gold Star family members in backing Hegseth’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense — but he said that he had never met Collins or Leavitt in person before; he told the Reporter that he welcomed the opportunity to share his family’s story with senior members of the administration.

“For them to actually see us face to face and put names to faces and our kids to our faces will be something that they will remember and that they will be able to work on and be able to tell us, face to face, that these are the changes we’re making, this was the breakdown in command during the withdrawal, and we will rectify it by doing A, B, and C,” he said.

During the meeting, Trump signed a proclamation condemning his predecessor for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and honoring the killed servicemembers, which Hoover said was an “honor.”

“It’s an honor for the kids and their legacies to be remembered throughout time — not that they wouldn't have been already, but having that resolution that President Trump signed in front of us memorialized the kids even further, and by proxy us too,” he said.

Following the meeting, the Gold Star family members received presidential challenge coins, which Hoover said are as heavy as the Congressional Gold Medal that they received from Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) last year.

But Hoover also left with a promise from Hegseth directly: that the report detailing the failures of the Biden administration will leave no stone unturned, and that it will be released in mid-2026.

Hoover has his own list of what he’d like it to focus on. Hoover wants “to be able to hold the military, the DOD responsible for the actions or inactions that happened, from the top down, or from the bottom up, it doesn’t matter.”

“If we need to break the glass ceiling and get rid of a few of those commanders who were in command — the suits and boots — that might be necessary,” he added. “If there is an existing law, or if we need to pass a new law that toggles a switch that kicks the State Department out and the DOD to fully take over NEOs or anything similar, that is important.”

Almost exactly four years ago, Hoover received the worst news a parent can receive: that his son was killed in combat — and then President Joe Biden repeatedly stared at his watch as American caskets rolled by him during a dignified transfer ceremony. But the elder Hoover said that his son’s memory gives him the strength to keep going.

“Taylor and Taylor’s memory [gives me tenacity to keep fighting for the Gold Star families], he said. “There are a lot of signs that I see and draw the strength from him knowing that his heart was with the veterans and he wanted to help them, and if there is any way that I can do that and be the intermediary between him and the veterans, then absolutely I’m going to do it.”

Hoover’s message to the Trump administration is simple: “we’re very grateful for the opportunity to be there, and be there once again with him, and solidifying our kids’ legacies even more.”

“What I want the nation and the world to know is that our kids matter, our military matters; this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but because it did, the Gold Star families of those who are killed need to be taken care of, our veterans need to be taken care of, and under this presidency, moving forward, I firmly believe that that is going to happen,” Hoover added. “Promises made, promises kept.”