Trump says C-17 should have been ‘full of AMERICANS’ after hammering Biden for not helping Afghans

Former President Donald Trump complained Wednesday at the sight of 640 refugees packed onto a U.S. Air Force C-17 arguing the plane should have been filled with Americans fleeing Afghanistan instead. 

‘This plane should have been full of Americans. America First!’ Trump said in a statement, sharing a tweet from CBS News that featured the photograph, that has gone viral since the Sunday flight. 

Trump previously hammered President Joe Biden for not rescuing civilians who had aided the American war effort. 

Trump shared the viral photo of 640 Afghans crammed into a Air Force C-17 fleeing Taliban rule 

On Monday, Trump hammered President Joe Biden for having the military leave Afghanistan for ‘evacuating civilians and others who have been good to our Country and who should be allowed to seek refuge’ 

‘Can anyone even imagine taking out our Military before evacuating civilians and others who have been good to our Country and who should be allowed to seek refuge?’ Trump said in a statement Monday. 

‘In addition, these people left topflight and highly sophisticated equipment. Who can believe such incompetence? Under my Administration, all civilians and equipment would have been removed,’ the former president added. 

Trump’s change of tune came as some of his allies started fear-mongering about Afghan refugees flooding into the U.S.  

Steve Cortes, a senior adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign, reacted to the Afghan refugee photo Tuesday by tweeting, ‘Raise your hand if you want this plane landing in your town?’ 

‘America paid unimaginable costs in Afghanistan because of uniparty globalists who dominated the Bush & Obama administrations. No more…,’ he said. 

The Center for Renewing America, which is led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget official Russ Vought, sent out a statement Tuesday cautioning that the U.S. shouldn’t bring in too many Afghan refugees.  

Steve Cortes, a senior adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign, shared the Afghan refugee photo Tuesday and tweeted, ‘Raise your hand if you want this plane landing in your town?’ 

The statement was co-authored by Ken Cuccinelli, who served as the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under Trump. 

It was shared on Twitter by top Trump aide Stephen Miller.  

‘[W]e must keep in mind that most of the fleeing Afghans will not have directly aided the United States or directly fought against the Taliban. And it is not in our national interest to accept refugees merely because they are refugees,’ the statement said. 

‘Already U.S. governors are rushing to resettle refugees from Afghanistan with no thought as to how it will impact the security or cohesion of their communities,’ the statement continued.  

‘Americans understandably want to protect Afghans who risked their lives to fight w U.S. against the Taliban & Al-Qaeda,’ it said.  ‘However, we must be careful that we do not allow the attitude behind the self-destructive open border policies & enforcement failures happening on our southern border to be repeated with the importation & resettlement of tens of thousands of Afghans who we cannot properly vet and who may very well pose a security risk to our communities, and may be unable or unwilling to assimilate into our country.’ 

During his four years in office, Trump was an immigration hard-liner who vastly diminished the U.S.’s refugee program. 

He also put in place a so-called ‘Muslim ban,’ which aimed to suspend travel and immigration from a handful of Muslim-majority countries. 

He first announced his plans for a ban in December 2015, weeks before the beginning of the Republican primary. 

Trump pushed to have the U.S. leave Afghanistan and signed a deal with the Taliban to remove all U.S. troops by May of this year. 

Biden extended the deployment, with the aim to remove U.S. boots on the ground by August 31, less than two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which prompted U.S. involvment in Afghanistan.