An image of President Biden hunched at his podium went viral on social media Thursday after the Commander-in-Chief spoke with reporters following a deadly terror attack in Kabul that killed at least 13 US Service Members.
“Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?” asked Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
“I bear responsibility, fundamentally, for all that’s happened… You know as well as I do that a former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forced out of Afghanistan by May 1…” said Biden.
DOOCY: "Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?"
BIDEN: "You know as well as I do that a former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forced out of Afghanistan by May 1…" pic.twitter.com/cUb24FhJar
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 26, 2021
A defining image. pic.twitter.com/nER7WyiEK0
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 26, 2021
Former President Donald Trump released a statement Thursday shortly after the bombings.
“Melania and I send our deepest condolences to the families of our brilliant and brave Service Members whose duty to the U.S.A. meant so much to them. Our thoughts are also with the families of the innocent civilians who died today in the savage Kabul attack,” posted the President.
“This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen, which makes our grief even deeper and more difficult to understand,” he added. “May God Bless the U.S.A.”
Watch Biden’s ‘defining moment’ above.
??????: Biden Launches Incoherent 3-Minute Rant Over Whether Americans Can Get Out of Afghanistan
President Biden held a disastrous press briefing Friday when he finally took answers from the media; launching into a three-minute rant about whether Americans can safely reach the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“You said there’s no circumstances where American citizens cannot get to the airport. That doesn’t square with the reporting on the ground. Are you saying any American who wants to get to the airport can get there?” asked one reporter.
“I thought the question was, how can they get through the airport, outside the airport, the answer is, to the best of our knowledge, the Taliban checkpoints, they are letting through, people […] That’s why we had to, I guess yesterday, or the day before? We went over the wall, and brought in, how many?” said the Commander-in-Chief.
“My guess is, no matter what, under what circumstances, we, anyone, there’s not a whole lot of Afghanis, there’s a whole lot of Afghanis who just as soon come to America,” he concluded.
A report from Reuters highlights the scope of the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan as the agency claims the Taliban now control 2,000 American-made vehicles and between 30 and 40 aircraft.
“U.S. officials tell Reuters that the current intelligence indicates that the Taliban control at least 2,000 U.S.-made armored vehicles, between 30 and 40 aircraft and an untold number of small arms,” writes a reporter from the global news agency.
“Joe Biden creates the Taliban Army and Air Force,” posted former Trump official Richard Grenell on Twitter.
Watch the bizarre comments above.
BIDEN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Afghanistan Collapse ‘Unfolded at Unexpected Speed’
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan weighed-in on the chaos engulfing Afghanistan Monday; admitting the Biden administration was caught off-guard by the “speed” of the Taliban advance.
“The president did not think it was inevitable that the Taliban were going to take control of Afghanistan,” Sullivan told ABC News. “He thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight because we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars, training them, giving them the best equipment, giving them support of U.S. forces for 20 years.”
“When push came to shove, they decided not to step up and fight for their country,” Sullivan added.
Scenes of panic and chaos played out at the airport in Kabul as crowds of people desperate to escape Afghanistan rushed onto the tarmac.
Some clung to the sides of planes, even as one taxied down the runway, in a bid to flee the Taliban.https://t.co/pAgoGW7tos pic.twitter.com/4YGQd2iEzk
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 16, 2021
“We planned for a wide range of contingencies, one of those was the need to flow in a substantial number of forces to secure the airport and be able to facilitate that evacuation,” Sullivan explained. “We have now successfully drawn down the U.S. embassy in Kabul. We have moved all of those personnel either to the airport or out of the country. And we flowed in several thousand troops who had been prepositioned in theater for precisely this purpose.”
BREAKING: Seven people are dead amid the chaos at the Kabul airport, including some who fell from a departing American military transport jet, senior U.S. military officials say. https://t.co/2JPKZXpx4n
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 16, 2021
“We are working to do that, first, by securing the airport today and then in the days ahead, by taking people out one flight a time, flight after flight,” Sullivan said. “We fully intend to continue an evacuation process to bring out people who worked alongside of us in Afghanistan.”
Biden to address nation on Afghanistan "soon" https://t.co/sUMBFFi2Za pic.twitter.com/SbvXd4d3zT
— The Hill (@thehill) August 16, 2021
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.