Stephen Colbert Hesitantly Admits Biden Did ‘Shank’ Afghanistan Withdrawal
Stephen Colbert opened Monday’s The Late Show in a more serious tone this week, dedicating his monologue to the Taliban’s take over of Kabul.
The host began by describing the “complete chaos” in Afghanistan and explained that the Taliban took over in just 10 days, forcing residents to try and flee the country.
“We have had troops there for 20 years — they fought, they sacrificed, their families sacrificed so that we wouldn’t have a terrorist attack in America planned in a foreign country. Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan?” Colbert later reasoned. “We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill.”
Colbert went on to say that roughly 70 percent of Americans supported President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw troops, joking that there are few things that many Americans agree on.
“I think it’s this and extra cheese, which also often ends badly and faster than you planned,” he cracked.
In addition to the initial approval rating, Colbert gave a rundown of Biden’s recent criticism, including from ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz, who called the administration’s inability to foresee the Taliban takeover a “massive intelligence failure.”
“‘Massive intelligence failure,’” Colbert repeated. “That’s got to sting when people describe your foreign policy the same way they describe Ron DeSantis.”
While Colbert conceded that, “It’s hard to argue that Biden didn’t shank the withdrawal,” he also pointed to former President Donald Trump’s role in the “debacle,” calling the takeover “the responsibility of both parties, and the American people who voted them into office.”
for “So, children and convicts, you’re off the hook,” he joked. “Also, thanks for watching.”
Although Trump called for Biden to resign after the Taliban took control, Colbert reminded viewers that the former president bragged that he started the process of removing American troops from Afghanistan, even saying that Democrats “couldn’t stop the process.”
Colbert joked that Trump cannot strip himself of any blame for a debacle he “helped set the stage for,” adding, “That’s like Andrew Lloyd Webber calling ‘Cats’ a terrible movie. You wrote a musical with no plot — how did you think this was going to end?”
“So in the end, you can make us accept that there was no good alternative, but you can’t make us feel good about it. The only people who can feel good about this are the service members and their families who aren’t going to see soldiers sent into harm’s way for no reason that the commander in chief of either party can articulate,” he continued.
“But there’s one more thing: For the last 20 years, four separate administrations told the American people to care about the plight of all the Afghan people, especially the women, and we did care and that’s not going to change. All that’s changed is that there’s nothing we can do about it now. So pulling out may be the right thing to do, but it’s heartbreaking; it’s humbling when the right thing feels so wrong.”
Watch above, via YouTube.
