Former CIA analyst Matt Zeller claimed Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s actions regarding the Afghanistan withdrawal would be judged based on how many Americans and Afghan allies he leaves behind in the country.
Zeller joined guest host Chris Jansing on a Tuesday broadcast of “Stephanie Ruhle Reports” to discuss the Biden administration’s efforts to evacuate American troops and Afghan allies. (RELATED: CIA Director Reportedly Held Clandestine Meeting With Leader Of Taliban)
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Jansing introduced Zeller by asking about the CIA director’s meeting with Taliban leadership and if it gave him any hope regarding the evacuation process.
“Look, I hope they’re making a deal. It is very clear that the devil’s arithmetic doesn’t have us being able to evacuate not just Afghans but Americans. The association of wartime allies puts out a daily tracker … as of yesterday, we were going to take until at least September 21st to complete the evacuation at the current pace of withdrawal. We want to take everybody. We don’t want to leave a single person behind,” Zeller responded.
He went on by saying that the Biden administration sending the CIA director to discuss the situation with the Taliban “hopefully” showed that White House officials understood Americans were going to judge them by the people they left behind.
“Let’s be clear, the president has to stop gaslighting the country. We could have done this in an orderly fashion. A plan existed all along. It is on a website, evacuate our allies.org. Tried to give it to the administration as early as February. Had they listened to us, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Zeller said.