Donald Trump accused US President Joe Biden and the White House of being “morons” for their hasty withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.
On Thursday, the US government acknowledged that it should have started the evacuation of Afghanistan much sooner than it did but it blamed much of it on former US president Donald Trump.
Trump has embraced the White House’s admission that the withdrawal was done too quickly, calling the Biden administration’s attempt to blame him for it “a new disinformation game.”
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said: “These Morons in the White House, who are systematically destroying our Country, headed up by the biggest Moron of them all, Hopeless Joe Biden, have a new disinformation game they are playing—Blame ‘TRUMP’ for their grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan.”
“I watched this disaster unfold just like everyone else. I saw them take out the Military FIRST, GIVE $85 Billion of military equipment, allow the killing of our soldiers, and leave Americans behind. Biden is responsible, no one else!” he added.
The White House on Thursday sent a report to Congress on the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and blamed the chaos on a deal former President Donald Trump made with the Taliban a year earlier.
The document remains confidential but a summary of the review’s conclusions was released on Thursday night.
In a press conference on Thursday night, President Joe Biden’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, blamed the chaos on Trump’s Doha deal and said Biden had “acted in accordance with the best judgment of his advisers”.
Asked whether any officials involved with the withdrawal would be removed from their posts as a result of the report, Kirby said its purpose “is not accountability”.
“After-action reviews are a very common practice. They are not investigations. They are not criminal proceedings,” Kirby said. “The idea is to learn from them.”
The White House summary states that “President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table. In September 2019, President Trump emboldened the Taliban by publicly considering inviting them to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11.”
