Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said former President Trump “lost the negotiating table” to the Taliban when he reached an agreement to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan within a specific deadline.
“What went wrong with Donald Trump's administration is that he lost the negotiations to the Taliban in Doha and locked both himself and the next administration into a timeline and agreement that was favorable to the Taliban,” Auchincloss, a veteran of Afghanistan, told NewsNation's “The Hill” in an interview.
The Trump administration brokered a deal with the Taliban in 2020 that laid out plans for the U.S. to fully withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021 if the group kept certain promises, such as not providing a safe haven for al-Qaida.
President Biden, who shares Trump's disdain for forever wars, has said he will follow through on his plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan but has twice delayed the exact date, citing logistical considerations.
But the withdrawal marked a low point for the Biden administration, which was roundly criticized in the media for its messy execution and for a devastating terrorist attack that killed 12 U.S. soldiers and others. The Taliban regained power faster than U.S. officials expected, but Auchincloss suggested that was the result of Trump's deal. Afghan forces trained and equipped by the U.S. military also failed to offer much resistance.
Auchincloss said in an interview Monday that the withdrawal was never going to be perfect, but he praised Biden for making a difficult but “courageous decision.”
“The challenge for Joe Biden was to make the courageous decision to end a war that, while it had achieved its counterterrorism objectives, had been forgotten in the quagmire of counterinsurgency that was well into its 30th year and generating $3 trillion in sunk costs,” Auchincloss said.
“Withdrawing 100,000 troops and tens of thousands of other people is never a perfect withdrawal. Of course, there were flaws, but ultimately he did the right thing,” he added.
In an interview, President Trump's spokesman, Steven Chang, criticized the Biden-Harris administration, particularly Vice President Harris' RoleBiden's running mate has withdrawn.
“Who is Jake Auchincloss? Whoever he is, he should tell the truth about how Harris and Biden presided over the biggest foreign policy blunder in American history that led to the needless deaths of 13 American soldiers,” Chang 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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