On Monday evening, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the Constitution demands that President Biden should bear responsibility for the “hasty, unplanned” United States withdrawal and subsequent Taliban recapture of Afghanistan.
In a seven-minute interview with Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle, Pompeo blasted Biden’s handling of pulling U.S. troops from Afghanistan and added that this is yet another failure carried out by his administration. Pompeo noted that former President Trump’s approach to Afghanistan did not display weakness, as he claims Biden’s administration does.
“We had a deterrence model. We knew that strength created peace and we know that weakness begets war. You are seeing the sum result of the weakness of the administration, whether it’s our southern border, whether it’s handing the Russians a pipeline completion that can threaten Europe – all of these things. The whole world watches,” Pompeo said in the interview. “I hope this administration comes to understand that apologizing, placating, appeasing, being weak, only presents a risk to American security.”
Pompeo responded to a clip of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) claiming that the Trump administration bears “very significant responsibility” for the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. “They walked down this path of legitimizing the Taliban,” she said, and smeared the campaign platform of “ending endless wars.” “What we’re watching right now in Afghanistan is what happens when America withdraws from the world.”
In his response, Pompeo explained that the Trump administration had concrete plans to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan without jeopardizing American security.
“We demonstrated that we could in fact conduct the American security mission in Afghanistan. We had a plan both to get our folks home, and a plan to make sure that we reduced the risk that we’d ever be attacked by that place again. We had a plan to do it. We were well on our way to executing that,” he said in the segment. “The Biden administration took over and they pulled the last pin out of the Jenga pile without having thought about the ramifications that would result.”
Ingraham inquired where the blame should be placed, specifically asking if key members of the Biden administration, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, should keep their jobs.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to hold the leadership accountable,” Pompeo stated. “As I think about these things, the Constitution demands that our senior leader, our commander-in-chief, be held accountable.”
Pompeo continued, further shredding Biden’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.“President Biden is the one that needs to be held accountable for what’s taking place in Afghanistan today and anything that befalls the United States as a result of the decisions he made, on the way he executed this withdraw in such a hasty, unplanned way that upended so much of the good work that had already been done. He needs to be held accountable.”
Mike Pompeo: Biden needs to be held accountable for what befalls the U.S. from this hasty and unplanned withdrawal from Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/7UNjYGVxzY
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 17, 2021