Rep. McCormick to Newsmax: Biden 'Inept' on Afghanistan

President Joe Biden "needs to take full responsibility" for what happened during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, as he was the man calling the shots, not former President Donald Trump, Rep. Rich McCormick told Newsmax Saturday.

"This was entirely by a commander in chief that was inept, did not have a good plan, did not have good coordination with his generals," the Georgia Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "As an Afghan veteran, I feel like I got punched in the gut when we did what we did in our withdrawal."

McCormick's comments follow a report released Thursday from the Biden administration that accused Trump of having created the circumstances that led to the deadly withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

In the report, the administration asserted that Biden had been "severely constrained" by Trump's decisions, and faulted what it called overly optimistic intelligence community assessments about the Afghan army's willingness to fight. It also claimed that Biden followed his military commanders' recommendations on the drawdown.

"I challenged Gen. [Mark] Milley when he said it was a logistical success and a strategic failure," said McCormick. "I said, 'Look, it's a strategic, tactical, and logistic failure. You had a long time to apply. You had a long time to plan. You could have done a plan that a sergeant could have executed in dramatic fashion to get these guys out safely.'"

Further, McCormick said the United States didn't "have to withdraw anytime," as it was in control.

But the intelligence reports showed that the smaller cities in Afghanistan were falling because "once you turned your back on the country, people were just trying to survive."

And as for blaming Trump, McCormick pointed out that not only do administrations turn over when new people come on board, but so do the officers with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"They didn't have any problems turning over, so don't tell me it's just a president's fault who wasn't even in charge at the time," said McCormick. "We can't ever blame the former commanding officer of a unit that I take over. That is poor leadership, and it's just not true. You get to call the shots, especially when you're commander in chief."

And Biden, he added, "wasn't even listening to the people he had serving with him."

McCormick also questioned why mercenaries hired by private citizens had to go into Afghanistan to pull out Americans.

"If you think about it, even the French use their own military forces to get their people out," said McCormick.

Further, the administration often blames Trump for issues, but "nobody invaded Ukraine, the Crimea, not the eastern front, not the northern front when Trump was president," said McCormick. "It was when [Barack] Obama was president and when Biden was president."

Meanwhile, McCormick recently visited with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and said the occasion was "historic" for him.

"[We] spent over an hour just talking about what it would take to maintain any sort of United States support, making sure that they had great accountability, not just the weapons systems, which I feel very good about the money that we give to their country to aid to buoy up," he said.

He added that Zelenskyy was receptive and humble, and wanted to make sure there was strict accountability for the billions the United States is spending and that "we knew that they're using the money appropriately because they want to win this war. They're in dire straits, and this is to stop Russia from doing some very bad things."

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