President Joe Biden walked away from a Friday press conference while a reporter asked him why he continues to trust the Taliban.
The president had just finished explaining that the U.S. had been in contact with the Taliban and didn’t expect Afghanistan to fall so fast. “But the point was that although we were in contact with the Taliban, and Doha, for this whole period of time, at some point it wasn’t expected to be a total demise of the Afghan National Force, which is 300 persons,” Biden said. (RELATED: Biden Administration Continues To Tell Fleeing Americans To Pay Their Way Out Of Afghanistan, Hours After Telling The Press Otherwise)
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Biden then claimed that if the Afghan National Force had continued to fight the Taliban instead of giving up, it would be a very different situation, especially in Taliban-controlled Kabul.
“Let’s assume the Afghan National Force had continued to fight and they were surrounding Kabul,” he added. “It would be a very different story. A very different story, but the overwhelming consensus was that they were not going to collapse. The Afghan forces, they were not just going to leave, they weren’t going to just abandon and put down their arms and take off. So that’s what happened.”
As Biden walked away, multiple reporters began yelling out their questions, including one who asked why he still trusts the Taliban.
“Why do you continue to trust the Taliban, Mr. President?” the reporter asked. Biden ignored the question and continued to walk away.
After the president announced that U.S. troops would be withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of the country within a matter of days. Now, the administration is struggling to deal with the crisis as Americans and foreign collaborators are trapped in Afghanistan, and U.S. officials have repeatedly insisted that they would do their best to get everyone out safely.