Senior Trump Officials Rip Former Boss for Afghanistan Pact: ‘The Taliban Didn’t Defeat Us. We Defeated Ourselves.’

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For days now, former President Donald Trump has tried to pin the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban squarely on his successor, President Joe Biden. But several top officials in his administration are calling out their former boss for trying to distance himself from a fire they believe he started.

Appearing on a podcast with Bari Weiss Wednesday, H.R. McMaster — Trump’s former national security adviser — laid blame squarely at the feet of Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for signing what he deems an ill-fated deal with the Taliban in February 2020.

“Our secretary of state signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban,” McMaster said. “This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”

Similarly, former Trump defense secretary Mark Esper — in a CNN International interview Tuesday — maintained that Trump’s vocal impatience with wanting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan had a significant impact on the situation.

“My concern was that President Trump, by continuing to want to withdraw American forces out of Afghanistan, undermined the agreement,” Esper said. “Which is why in the fall, when he was calling for a return of U.S Forces by Christmas, I objected and formally wrote a letter to him. A memo based on recommendations from the military chain of command and my senior civilian leadership that we not go further, that we not reduce below 4,500 troops — unless and until conditions were met by the Taliban. Otherwise, we would see a number of things play out, which are unfolding right now in many ways.”

Trump has insisted, in recent days, that Biden owns Afghanistan — calling on him to “resign in disgrace” for his handling of the situation. Tuesday night on Hannity, Trump claimed that he would have stood up more to the Taliban if he were still in office.

“We had a great deal, we worked on it very hard,” Trump said. “Mike Pompeo, a brilliant guy, and many others worked on it endlessly. Meetings with the Taliban, of course, you have to meet with the Taliban. They’re the ones that you’re negotiating with. I spoke on numerous occasions to the head of the Taliban, and we had a very strong conversation. I told him up front, I said, ‘look, before we start, let me just tell you right now that if anything bad happens to Americans or anybody else or if you ever come over to our land, we will hit you with a force that no country has ever been hit with before.'”