CBS’ Major Garrett Asks Nikki Haley If Trump Administration ‘Set in Motion What We’re Seeing Now’ in Afghanistan
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed the Biden administration over Afghanistan while defending the Trump administration over their role in negotiating with the Taliban.
Haley said the Biden administration “completely surrendered to the Taliban” as she spoke to Major Garrett on CBS’s Face The Nation. She further pronounced America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan an “embarrassing failure” and claimed that the U.S.’ allies “literally won’t trust us at this point and think we’ve lost our minds.”
As the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan gave way to the ongoing chaos in Kabul, there has been a great deal of conversation lately about whether Haley and the rest of the Donald Trump administration laid the groundwork for the current chaos. Garrett brought this up, noting that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to forge a peace agreement with the Taliban years ago that originally called for U.S. forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by May.
“Did that set in motion what we’re seeing now?” Garrett asked.
Haley’s answer:
I think everybody’s wanting to go back and talk about Trump. The truth is, under four years of Trump, Afghanistan was safe. We made sure that we kept terrorism at bay and that we came from a strength of position. What’s happened in seven months of Biden is we’ve completely surrendered and we’ve humiliated ourselves in the eyes of the world. The thing is, there are times where you have to negotiate with the devil, but you negotiate with the devil from a point of strength. You don’t do it from a point of weakness. We literally have no leverage right now with the Taliban. All we’re going to see them do is they’re going to buy time and act like they’re going to be nice until August 31st, and then all of those women, all of those girls, everything is going to go back to the way it was.
Haley went on by calling for President Joe Biden to extend the August 31st deadline to ensure that all U.S. citizens and fleeing Afghan allies will be flown out of the country. She also claimed that Trump wouldn’t have allowed the Taliban’s takeover to happen as it did.
“Anyone that wants to say this was already set in motion,” she said, “it’s not what was going to happen. It was how it happened. And this happened in the most embarrassing, humiliating way.”
Watch above, via CBS.
