Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., on Friday refuted GOP calls for President Joe Biden to resign over the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that's claimed 13 service members’ lives after a terror attack at the Kabul airport.
In an interview on ''CNN Newsroom,'' Kinzinger, who voted to impeach President Donald Trump over the January 6 Capitol riot, said he doesn’t think it’s time to call for Biden’s resignation — nor for him to be impeached.
''I do believe some people on [Biden’s] national security team should resign,'' Kinzinger said, a transcript of the interview shows. ''That's up to them and it's up to [Biden].
''But, I mean, look, we impeach presidents for high crimes and misdemeanors,'' he continued. ''This is a bad decision. Other presidents have made bad decisions, but I'm not going to call on the president to resign for this nor to be impeached.
''We need some stability in our government,'' Kinzinger argued. ''We've gotten to this back and forth where it's just [a] constant battle of power, who can take over next year instead of looking at this country needs some real help. We need actually grown-up politics for once and not just kind of next-day news cycle politics.''
Kinzinger said there’s no question the U.S. withdrawal is going to be seen as a ''failure.''
''The second we pull out, the endless war that everybody wants to quit actually has blown up even bigger,'' he said. ''We have lengthened the endless war by our lack of presence in Afghanistan and giving these people a place to plan and execute attacks,'' he said of terrorists.
He also noted that as a military veteran, he thinks ''it serves a purpose'' for the United States to remain in Afghanistan, though other vets want the United States to leave the country.
''Regardless of how you felt about it, you want to know you achieved something,'' he said.
''Obviously these 13 [service members] killed hopefully will be the last killed in that theater. It's a sick feeling. But the reality is I think we need to do a little focusing. I try to remind myself, my fellow veterans of this, the people's lives we did revolutionize and change. There are a lot of women journalists and professors now that never would have been without America's involvement. But geopolitically, it's going to be seen as a failure.''
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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