GOP Sen. Barrasso: US Armed Taliban 'to Fight Now on Steroids'

The Afghanistan withdrawal executed by President Joe Biden has left a military arsenal in the hands of the Taliban, which ostensibly allow it to "fight now on steroids," according to Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

"They now have weapons," Barrasso told Fox Business' Larry Kudlow on Monday night. "You know what we left behind — $85 billion worth of weapons, [[Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles], tanks, Black Hawk helicopters. We left money behind — arms."

Former President Donald Trump called on the Biden administration to issue an ultimatum to the Taliban, who seized arms from the surrendering U.S.-supplied Afghanistan military, to turn the weapons and equipment back over to the U.S. in lieu of the U.S. bombing "the hell out of it."

He wrote in a statement from his Save America PAC:

"Never in history has a withdrawal from war been handled so badly or incompetently as the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. In addition to the obvious, ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost. If it is not handed back, we should either go in with unequivocal military force and get it, or at least bomb the hell out of it. Nobody ever thought such stupidity, as this feeble-brained withdrawal, was possible!"

Barrasso expounded on that sentiment to Kudlow.

"The amazing thing, they have a funding network," Barrasso continued. "They have a criminal network of drugs and human trafficking. Plus the Taliban along with ISIS, al-Qaida — they now have a willingness to fight that is now on steroids after the fact they now have the entire country of Afghanistan to use as a platform on which to attack the United States."

At a press briefing after the last U.S. plane left Kabul on Monday, Central Command leader Gen. Kenneth McKenzie insisted "some of" the weapons and equipment the U.S. left being were rendered inoperable.

"We demilitarized some of it," McKenzie told reporters. "It's a complex procedure to break down those systems. So we demilitarized those systems so that they'll never be used again.

"And we felt it more important to protect our forces than to bring those systems back. We have also demilitarized equipment that we did not bring out of the airport. That included a number of MRAPs, up to 70 MRAPs that we demilitarized and will never be used again by anyone; 27 Humvees that will never be driven again; and additionally, on the ramp at [Hamid Karzai International Airport], a total of 73 aircraft — those aircraft will never be able to fly again or operated by anyone.

"Most of them were never mission-capable to begin with, but certainly they'll never be able to be flown again."

• Rep. Kat Cammack to Newsmax: I Watched the Taliban Execute Our Translator
• Sen. Joni Ernst to Newsmax: Not Sure US Will Get All Americans Out of Afghanistan