Rep. Brian Babin, after hearing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak with members of the House Republican Conference, told Newsmax Friday that he agrees with him "100%" that the chaotic situation in Afghanistan was "totally preventable."
"(President Joe) Biden absolutely did not listen to his advisers, didn't pay attention to what was going on, and then turned and said the buck stops here and then says it was all Trump's fault," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
Pompeo, who had been on the House's Benghazi select committee when he was a Kansas representative, addressed the House GOP conference Thursday morning, reports CNN.
During that call, Pompeo, widely seen as a potential presidential candidate for 2024, explained how the Trump administration would have handled the Afghanistan withdrawal and argued that the same chaos would not have happened, because under the previous president, the focus would have been on making removing Americans from the country a top priority.
Former President Donald Trump had based his agreement last year for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan on the condition that the actions of the Taliban would determine the progress of the withdrawal, Babin added.
"The number of troops was from 15,000 to 1,500 under President Trump," Babin said. "Why in the world could President Biden not do that? And why would he have given up Bagram Air Base?"
But Biden's failures aren't only with Afghanistan, said Babin, noting that in the president's first seven months, "we have a border security crisis, we've got an energy crisis, we've got an economic crisis. Inflation is popping back up. We have a crime wave."
All of that was before the situation with the Middle East, he said, as the Taliban is "back in business."
"They control more of Afghanistan than they did back in 2011 when we attacked them," said Babin. "It is amazing that we have a situation here that is so incompetently led. "
He added that the Democrats "know that there's a real problem in the White House" with Biden being president.
"The United States cannot continue to have flubs like this," said Babin. "Giving up billions of dollars of our equipment over there; seeing the Taliban run around with M-4s and M-16s. The Taliban has more Black Hawk helicopters than Australia, one of our allies."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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