Fifty-two percent of Americans rate President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan situation as “poor,” according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday.
Additionally, 50 percent say Biden’s determination to withdraw all U.S. service members from the country by Aug. 31 is a bad decision, compared with 34 percent who think it’s a good decision. Another 16 percent say they are unsure.
Biden in April announced the withdrawal and his administration pushed ahead with the plan in early July. By Aug. 15, Taliban fighters entered the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, the Afghan president fled the country and the U.S. evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.
Biden said in a speech he did not regret his decision to end America’s military operations in Afghanistan and deflected blame for the Afghan government’s swift collapse.
“The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” the president said. “If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.”
The poll, conducted Aug, 26 and 29 among 1,000 likely voters, also found:
- 51 percent believe more than 100 American civilians will be left behind in Afghanistan after the withdrawal is completed, including 36 percent who think more than 500 will be left behind
- 53 percent of Democratic voters rate the administration’s handling of the current situation as good or excellent but just 16 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of unaffiliated voters share that view
- Most Republicans – 71 percent – and unaffiliated voters – 51 percent – think it was a bad decision for Biden to withdraw all service members by Aug. 31, compared with 51 percent of Democrats who think it was a good decision
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent points.