Republican Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger called out the Biden administration, saying that the abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan had resulted in Americans asking the Taliban for permission to rescue their own people.
Kinzinger appeared on a broadcast of “The Lead” Wednesday and slammed the Biden administration for how they handled withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and evacuation efforts for Americans and Afghan allies. (RELATED: Kinzinger: What If We Had Not Shut Down Bagram Air Force Base?)
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“Particularly in the last 11 days, as we saw the military, a rapid basically capitulation and the Taliban advances, why were we not then surging in military forces to take back Bagram Air Base, to defend Kabul to make sure we have things in place. Because this wasn’t a 24-hour collapse. It was still a week and a half. And now we’re in a position where we’re disgracefully begging the Taliban for basically permission to save Americans,” Kinzinger said.
Host Jake Tapper questioned Kinzinger further on a report about the Biden administration having concerns of conservative criticism to Afghans wanting to come to the U.S.
“Obviously you see people like Stephen Miller out there and some of the crazy far right saying things like, ‘this is an alternative plan to populate the United States with Muslims,'” Kinzinger responded. He added that the U.S. was keeping a promise it made, and that the United States failed the Afghan people, but they could not fail the people they made a promise to.
Kinzinger then said that Congress and other politicians were pointing fingers at each other in an effort to get a victory out of it, and that both Biden’s administration and former President Donald Trump’s administration had failed the American people. Kinzinger argued that Trump had failed by negotiating a terrible deal and President Joe Biden went ahead with a total withdrawal that was poorly executed.