After attending a classified briefing, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that he does not believe that it will be possible to get all Americans out of Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline.
McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers held a press conference on Tuesday slamming the Biden administration for the mismanaged withdrawal.
“I’m less confident after leaving that briefing. There’s no possible way that we can get every American that’s still in Afghanistan out in the next seven days,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said that we should be using every recourse necessary to make sure that every single American is evacuated — and not allow the Taliban to dictate the terms.
“At no time should America ever bend or allow the Taliban to tell us when we have to stop bringing Americans out. We should stay until every single American is able to get out of Afghanistan. And we should use every recourse possible to make that happen.”
McCarthy continued on to say that "we should not negotiate it. We should explain that is what is going to happen. And anybody in our way to stop us from bringing an American out, will be in danger."
The House Minority Leader also called for the Biden administration to be investigated over their handling of the withdrawal. He said that the president's decision to fully withdraw before September 11 was a “mistake that will haunt us for decades.”
“How does the rest of the world look at us?” McCarthy added. “They like that the president doesn’t tweet, but they don’t think America is very tough.”
Biden defended his decision to withdraw in a statement on Sunday.
“Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in US history,” the statement said. “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”
