DEMOCRAT slams White House Afghanistan whitewash

Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton on Friday slammed the White House’s whitewashing of the Afghanistan withdrawal, arguing that President Joe Biden should take more of the blame as the commander-in-chief.

Moulton, a Marine veteran and former 2020 presidential contender, appeared on Fox News Channel and told host Dana Perino that if the White House had followed former President Donald Trump’s plan the withdrawal would have been ‘even more chaotic.’ 

Still, he said the Biden administration should assume more of the blame, reacting to the report the White House released Thursday that primarily pointed fingers at what the Trump administration did. 

‘I don’t think it’s enough to just blame the previous administration. This is the commander-in-chief. He’s responsible for what his administration does,’ the Massachusetts Democrat said. 

Moulton criticized Biden’s team for not evacuating Americans and Afghan allies fast enough and also leaving equipment on the ground. 

A photo from the U.S. Marines shows the scene at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul amid the frantic evacuation of Afghanistan in August 2021

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called it ‘just ludicous’ Thursday when asked about a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report that said $7 billion in U.S. equipment was left behind when the Taliban took over. 

‘It’s their stuff … it belongs to the Afghans,’ Kirby replied.  

Trump has falsely accused the administration of losing a whopping $85 billion in military equipment. 

Moulton did agree with Kirby who commended the job the troops did from the White House podium. 

‘Look, John Kirby is right, the troops did an amazing job,’ Moulton said.

He pointing out how the U.S. was able to take over Kabul’s commercial airport to get more than 122,000 people out of the country on flight after flight. 

‘Yes, we got out a lot of Afghans, but we left a lot of Afghan allies behind,’ Moulton noted. ‘Veterans like myself are still working every day to try to get them to freedom before they’re massacred by the Taliban.’ 

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed the press Thursday after the White House released the Afghanistan report 

The 12-page White House post-morten said that the Trump administration displayed ‘disregard and even hostility’ for the Special Immigrant Visa program, which created a backlog of some 18,000 applications.  

Moulton pointed out that the backlog still exists today – and Biden has been in office for more than two years.  

‘Some statistics, I’ve seen, it could take 18 years to get through that,’ Moulton said. ‘So that means we didn’t keep our promise to those Afghans that helped us.’  

Moulton said he recently heard a story of an Afghan interpreter whose paperwork was ready to go but his flight got delayed. 

‘Why? Because of the World Cup. During the two weeks that evacuation flight were stopped because it was more important for the world to be watching soccer, the Taliban hunted him down and killed him,’ the congressman said. ‘That’s what continues to go on every single day while we still have so many Afghan heroes, heroes to our troops, left behind.’  

Perino said she had heard some veterans say they were dealing with a ‘moral injury’ and asked Moulton if he was aware of that term being used. 

‘Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of us feel this way,’ he replied. ‘We made a promise to have their backs.’

‘And, look, you can spread the blame around here,’ he said, pointing to the Trump administration stalling the visas. 

Perino asked Moulton if he’d consider running for president again.

‘Look, I ran for president because I thought Donald Trump was a unique challenge to this country,’ he said. ‘And it would be important to have a combat veteran in the race.’ 

‘I think the American people made it clear they didn’t want me,’ Moulton noted. 

Moulton’s 2020 campaign only lasted for four months. 

Biden has not yet formally announced a reelection run. 

The only Democrats who are challenging him are self-help guru Marianne Williamson and prominent anti-vaxxer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.