In an interview on Monday, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) said that President Biden “screwed it up” regarding the vetting of Afghan refugees entering the United States.
Cotton’s remarks were made in an interview on “Fox & Friends” after reports surfaced that there were empty seats on evacuation flights leaving Afghanistan while Americans and allies were attempting to flee. Additionally, news broke last week that the FBI is investigating a reported sexual assault against a female soldier at Fort Bliss by Afghan refugees. Two weeks ago, at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, two Afghan men were reportedly charged with assault and other crimes.
In the segment, Cotton lambasted Biden’s handling of vetting Afghan refugees, and explained that Afghan nationals who should not have been evacuated were brought out.
“Joe Biden screwed it up coming and going. So first, we left a lot of people in Afghanistan who should’ve gotten out. Second, we brought a lot of people out who we shouldn’t have brought out. People who had no particular attachment to the United States, who hadn’t fought with our troops. And you’ve seen the reports now of a young female soldier being assaulted at Fort Bliss in El Paso, or sex offenses by Afghan men at Fort McCoy and other offenses...There’s really no vetting. It’s hard to do in Afghanistan, it’s one of the reasons it took so long is you got to go interview people face-to-face. I mean, Afghanistan’s a third-world country. You don’t just call up the FBI, the high school, or the local police, so we have almost no way to vet these people. The Biden administration is taking their name, if it is their name, testing it against databases, and if they don’t come back, then it’s like ‘well, they must be fine to go.’”
As Julio reported, Cotton was critical of Biden’s approach to our withdrawal from Afghanistan back in August, noting that he did not keep his promise to Americans to stay past the August 31 deadline to get them all evacuated.
“Joe Biden promised the Taliban America would leave by August 31. Joe Biden promised American citizens in Afghanistan he would stay until he got them out. When the rubber hit the road, Joe Biden kept his promise to the Taliban and broke his promise to Americans," Cotton said in an interview in August. “Most Americans realize Joe Biden is solely responsible for the fiasco we’ve seen in the last three weeks in Afghanistan."
