‘You Sir, Should Resign’: GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin Excoriates Blinken Over Afghan Withdrawal in Testy Hearing Exchange

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) slammed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday over the Biden administration’s withdrawal of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan and called on Blinken to step down.

“This was fatally flawed, poorly executed,” said Zeldin during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “We had the loss of U.S. service members as a result.”

“We should not have been operating off of an arbitrary July 31st deadline,” continued Zeldin, incorrectly citing the withdrawal deadline, which was Aug. 31. “Instead, what we should have done was tell the Taliban that we are going to leave Afghanistan when we’re done bringing every last American home. Not operating off of some arbitrary date.”

Zeldin went on to point the wrongs he saw during the withdrawal:

We shouldn’t have collapsed Bagram [Air Base] when we did. We shouldn’t have been relying on the Taliban to provide security at the airport. We shouldn’t have been allowing billions of dollars worth of U.S. weapons and equipment turned over to Afghanistan. The administration should not have been lying and misleading the American public like when the White House press secretary is standing out there to the press, the American public and saying that Americans aren’t stranded even though we all know that they are.

Zeldin then voiced his concerns over the administration’s handling of other foreign policy issues:

I’m concerned that this administration with incompetency is exposing a vulnerability that other countries like we see North Korea testing long-range missiles. We see Iran enhancing uranium enrichment,” he said. “What happens when China and Russia and Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they continue to press forward because we have an administration that doesn’t know how to confront an adversary, understanding that they do not respect weakness. They only respect strength.

“And it is so greatly unfortunate the consequences and I believe you sir should resign,” concluded Zeldin. “That would be leadership.”

Blinken responded, “To the contrary, congressman, I believe that there’s nothing that our strategic competitors like China and Russia or our adversaries like Iran, like North Korea, would have liked more than for President [Joe] Biden to have re-upped the war in Afghanistan for another five, 10 or 20 years. To be bogged down in that conflict. Nothing that they would have liked more.”

“And we’re now able as a result of the decision the president made that none of his predecessors made to end the war after 20 years and to ensure that a third generation of Americans didn’t have to go off and fight and die in Afghanistan while bringing 125,000 people out,” he continued. “We are now in a much better position to confront the challenges and threats that we actually face in 2021.”

Zeldin tried to respond, but Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the chairman of the committee, would have none of it.

“The gentleman’s time is expired,” yelled Meeks while slamming his gavel.

Watch above, via Fox News.