Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said former President Trump was “out-negotiated” by the Taliban when he struck a deal to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan on a specific timeline.
“What went wrong under Donald Trump is that he was out-negotiated by the Taliban in Doha, and he handcuffed both himself and the next administration to a timetable and a deal that gave Taliban the leverage,” Auchincloss, who served in Afghanistan, said in an interview on “The Hill” on NewsNation.
The Trump administration brokered a deal with the Taliban in 2020 that laid out a plan for the U.S. to fully withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021 if the group upheld certain commitments, such as denying safe haven to al Qaeda.
President Biden, who shared Trump’s disdain for forever wars, said he would follow through with Trump’s plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, but he moved the exact date twice, citing logistical considerations.
The withdrawal, however, marked a low point for the Biden administration, which was hammered in the media for its messy execution and for the devastating terrorist attack that killed 12 U.S. soldiers and others. The Taliban retook control faster than U.S. officials predicted, which Auchincloss suggested was a result of Trump’s deal. The Afghan forces trained and equipped by American troops also failed to provide much resistance.
Auchincloss, in the Monday interview, said the withdrawal would never have been flawless, but he credited Biden with making the difficult but “courageous decision.”
“The challenge that Joe Biden had is that he made the courageous decision to end a war that had accomplished its counterterrorism purpose, but that had become lost in the muck of a counterinsurgency campaign that was entering its third decade and $3 trillion of sunk cost,” Auchincloss said.
“And withdrawing 100,000 troops and tens of thousands of more individuals is never going to be a 10 out of 10 dismount. Of course, there were going to be flaws, but ultimately, he took the correct action,” he added.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to the interview by placing blame on the Biden-Harris administration and specifically focusing on the role Vice President Harris, Biden’s running mate, played in the withdrawal.
“Who is Jake Auchincloss? Whoever he is, he should actually tell the truth about how Harris-Biden presided over one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in U.S. history that led to 13 unnecessary deaths of our service members,” Cheung said. “Kamala Harris is a disgrace and she proudly said she was the last person in the room with Biden before they made that disastrous decision.”
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