House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy slammed President Joe Biden’s strategy of coordinating with the Taliban a day after 13 U.S. service members were killed near the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
McCarthy, a California Republican, has called on House Democrats to cut short their summer recess to reconvene and hold a briefing with Biden administration officials about the deadly attack, which he blamed on the president’s bungled withdrawal plan.
Republicans have been particularly critical of the Biden administration’s decision to coordinate with the Taliban to help evacuate Americans and Afghan allies who are seeking special visas from the United States. The Biden administration provided the Taliban with the names of both American and Afghan allies to allow through checkpoints near the airport.
“Here is an administration that says they do not trust the Taliban, and then, they turn around and depend on it,” McCarthy told reporters at a Friday news briefing in the Capitol. “Why would you ever depend on the Taliban?”
The Biden administration has set an Aug. 31 deadline to leave the country, although thousands of U.S. citizens remain there.
McCarthy and Republicans are pressuring Democrats to take up a bill by Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and Iraq War veteran, that would require the U.S. military to remain in Afghanistan until all Americans are evacuated.
Biden said during a news conference Thursday that “there may have been” a list of evacuees provided to the Taliban.
“At no given time should we provide to our enemy, to a terrorist organization, these are American names we want to come into the airport,” McCarthy said.
U.S. officials say they are working with the Taliban to ensure evacuees are allowed into the airport. The Taliban have blocked off much of the access there, and the group has harassed Americans while beating Afghan allies and preventing them from getting through.
McCarthy said the control over the evacuation should shift away from the State Department and be handed over entirely to the military.
“I’d love for the military to do what it takes to get them out safely and what does it take to do it with American men and women and not the Taliban,” McCarthy said. “There’s no other answer.”
