The Biden administration "believes if you say something often enough and long enough, people will start to believe it," Sen. Marsha Blackburn said on Newsmax Tuesday in response to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's House testimony blaming the Trump administration for the issues in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Tennessee Republican told Newsmax's "American Agenda" that former President Donald Trump, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, NATO allies, and the Afghan partners and security forces had come to an agreement to pull down troops, through a "conditions-based withdrawal."
"Joe Biden comes along," she said. "He doesn't like that. So, like everything else to do that President Trump had put in place whether it is tax reform, cutting taxes, and regulation, or approving the Keystone pipeline, Joe Biden decides I'm going to do this my way. "
That way included deciding that he wanted to "circle Sept. 11 on the calendar and say 'by that day, we're going to be gone. It's the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, I'm going to take a victory lap. I'm going to say I'm the guy. I got this done. I ended the war in Afghanistan,'" said Blackburn.
But, the problem was, that instead of stamping out terror, Biden "emboldened the Taliban and other terrorist organizations and this ideology of radical Islamic extremism and terrorism," she added.
"Now he's given them a country and the type of control so they have a safe haven to cook up all of the plans that they want to carry out against the free world," said Blackburn.
Blackburn also commented on statements Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, made during Monday's hearing, when he complained that Republicans had held up nominations for certain appointees Biden had made for the State Department.
"The problem is that there was not a plan," Blackburn said. "The state department has plenty of personnel that are over there. They have their called career bureaucrats. What they were lacking was a plan that was going to be conditions-based and a way to start this withdrawal. The other thing that happened was. You didn't have people listening to what the military or the CIA was telling them...there was a lack of attention to the participation of China. Even though China about six weeks ago had a picture of them, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taliban leadership."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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