Jake Tapper Calls Out Nikki Haley, Trump Administration Over ‘Attempted Memory Hole’ On Afghanistan
CNN’s Jake Tapper tore into former President Donald Trump’s administration for criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of Afghanistan while deflecting from their own involvement in the chain of events behind the current chaos.
Tapper joined colleagues John Berman and Brianna Keilar on Thursday to talk about how the U.S. government is being forced to negotiate with the Taliban amid frantic efforts to evacuate people from Afghanistan. Berman brought up a tweet from Nikki Haley where she said that diplomatically engaging with the Taliban is “an unbelievable scenario” akin to “dealing with the devil.”
To have our Generals say that they are depending on diplomacy with the Taliban is an unbelievable scenario. Negotiating with the Taliban is like dealing with the devil.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) August 18, 2021
Berman found the tweet ironic in that “She was U.N. Ambassador when the Trump Administration began dealing with the Taliban.” Tapper followed up by noting that Haley touted the Trump Administration in 2018 because “We’re seeing that we are closer to talks with the Taliban in the peace process than we’ve seen before.”
“There is this attempt to memory hole the last four years under President Trump of an attempt to have a peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban,” said Tapper. He also noted that the Trump administration decided to exclude the Afghan government when those talks with the Taliban were happening.
“I’m not faulting the Trump administration for attempting to achieve some sort of peace deal with the Taliban. You don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. That’s how peace deals work,” Tapper said. “But there is this attempt by former Secretary [Mike] Pompeo, Vice President [Mike] Pence, Trump is all over the map on this, Nikki Haley, and their supporters in Congress to pretend that there is something demonstrably different about what Biden did than what Trump would have done.”
After CNN’s New Day rolled footage of Haley’s old comments, Tapper reiterated that “the issue is not that they were trying to make peace with the Taliban” despite their questionable methods.
“The issue is they are now pretending that the previous effort did not happen,” Tapper said. He then turned to Trump’s last acting defense secretary, Chris Miller, claiming in a new interview that Trump merely wanted to trick the Taliban into thinking the U.S. would withdraw from Afghanistan.
“That’s just crap. Of course he had every intention of leaving Afghanistan,” Tapper continued. “There is an attempted memory hole that is just insulting to everyone, including people in the MAGA world who liked that about Trump.”
Tapper concluded by noting that the Afghanistan withdraw’s execution is “deserving of criticism,” but some of the people criticizing Biden were also complaining months ago about him not making it happen on the Trump administration’s deadline for May.
“They were faulting Biden for doing the exact opposite of what they’re faulting him for now. So that hypocrisy is just rank and offensive.”
Watch above, via CNN.
