Former President Donald Trump followed President Joe Biden’s speech on the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan with a brief message on Monday, criticizing the U.S. military withdrawal from the country.
“It’s not that we left Afghanistan,” Trump said in his latest tweemail. “It’s the grossly incompetent way we left!”
The United States has deployed roughly 7,000 troops, including multiple Marine battalions and the Army’s 82nd Airborne, to facilitate the hasty exit of embassy diplomats and others as the Taliban conquered Kabul, leaving residents scrambling to flee the embattled nation.
Biden returned to the White House, after spending the weekend at Camp David, to deliver an address to the nation about Afghanistan, saying he stands “squarely behind” his decision to end the U.S. war-fighting mission in the country ahead of a deadline of Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
BIDEN: AFGHAN GOVERNMENT COLLAPSED ‘MORE QUICKLY THAN WE ANTICIPATED’
“Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building,” Biden said in the televised national address. “It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.”
“There was only a cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict,” he added. “I stand squarely behind my decision.”
Biden was met with some criticism for how he deflected blame despite the withdrawal, which was set in motion by the Trump administration, and the Taliban takeover taking place under his watch as president.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The president said that the buck stopped with him, but, in fact, the speech was full of finger-pointing and blame, especially for the Afghans,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said shortly after Biden’s speech.
“Mr. Biden also focused on the larger decision to end the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, that was, in fact, his larger focus, whether or not the U.S. should continue to be there, he did not really get into or accept any blame for the catastrophic exit that we have been watching on television in the last several days,” Tapper added.
