Trump: Guard member in shooting dies

A sergeant remains in critical condition. A suspect is charged in the attack in D.C.

- ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, GARY FIELDS, ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE AND BEN FINLEY

FEDERAL and local law enforcement teams patrol a Metro station on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

(ANDREW LEYDEN Getty Images)

President Trump said Thursday that one of the two National Guard members allegedly shot by an Afghan national near the White House a day earlier had died, calling the suspect — who had worked with the CIA in his native country — a “savage monster.”

As part of his Thanksgiving call to U.S. troops, Trump said that he had just learned that Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had died, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life.”

“She’s just passed away,” Trump said. The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”

Trump used the announcement to say the shooting was a “terrorist attack” as he claimed the Biden administration enabled Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the U.S. without sufficient vetting. The president has deployed National Guard members in part to assist in his administration's mass deportation efforts.

Trump suggested that the shooter was mentally unstable after the war and departure from Afghanistan.

“He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts,” the president said. “It happens too often with these people.”

The suspect charged with the shooting is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29. He had worked in a special CIA-backed Afghan army unit before emigrating from Afghanistan, according to two sources who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, and #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the two-decade war.