CNN’s Acosta Dings Biden Admin on Taliban Resurgence: ‘Won’t Admit’ They Were Caught by Surprise, ‘But They Were’

CNN’s Jim Acosta jabbed the Biden administration on Friday for being taken by surprise at the speed with which the Taliban is regaining control of much of Afghanistan as U.S. forces draw down.

Acosta and fellow CNN host Fareed Zakaria expressed astonishment and dismay at the deteriorating security situation in the country.

“Why do you think the Biden administration was caught by surprise in all of this?” Acosta asked his colleague. “They won’t admit it, but they were.”

Zakaria replied, “I think everyone was caught by surprise at the extent to which this has collapsed.”

He then pointed to low casualty numbers in areas gained by the Taliban, which Zakaria said is an indication that the Afghan military is simply not putting up much resistance.

“The Afghan army is not actually fighting,” he said. “It is melting away. That is a 300,000 person army, trained for 20 years with, as you say, tens of billions of dollars of American money with an air force. And it just doesn’t fight. It melts away.”

“It is maddening because we seem to have bought a military for the Afghan security forces and now that’s going to belong to the Taliban, it seems,” said Acosta. “The U.S. Embassy in Kabul is instructing people to destroy sensitive materials. That seems to be an admission that they expect Kabul to fall.”

“I think you’d be crazy not to be planning for that,” said Zakaria. “You’re not hearing from the president of Afghanistan. You’re not hearing about counteroffensives. You’re not hearing about regrouping.”

Acosta returned to Biden’s handling of the withdrawal and said, “He didn’t anticipate this happening.”

Zakaria called the situation “a slow motion disaster” that had been initiated by Trump’s decision to start withdrawing U.S. soldiers from the country last year, as well as negotiating with the Taliban.

Watch above via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!