During an interview on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if President Biden “knows what’s going on” by Fox News’ Chris Wallace and Blinken just answered “this is an incredibly emotional time for us all.”
“Mr. Secretary, does the President not know what’s going on?” Wallace asked.
“This is an incredibly emotional time for many of us, and including allies and partners who’ve been shoulder to shoulder with us in Afghanistan for 20 years, at high costs themselves as well as us,” Blinken responded. “They stood with us after 9/11, invoked Article Five of NATO for the first time, an attack on one is an attack on all, and we’ve been there together. But I got to tell you this, Chris, from the get go, I spent more time with our NATO partners in Brussels, virtually from before the President made his decision to when he made his decision to every time since. We’ve been working very, very closely together. We’ve gotten the G7 together, NATO together, the U.N. Security Council together, we had 113 centuries, thanks to our diplomacy, to put out a clear understanding of the Taliban’s requirements to let people leave the country.”
“Sir, respectfully that, that look, I’m not questioning whether or not the allies have a right to complain. I’m not questioning whether or not al Qaeda has a presence,” Wallace responded. “The President said, Al Qaeda is gone. It’s not gone. The President said he’s not heard any criticism from the allies. There’s been a lot of criticism from the allies, words matter and the words of the President matter most.”
“Chris, all I can tell you is what I’ve heard,” Blinken said. “And again, this is an powerfully emotional time for a lot of allies and partners as it is for me, as it is for us.”
Chris Wallace confronts Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Biden’s “flat wrong” claims on Afghanistan: “Does the president not know what’s going on?” pic.twitter.com/kRewfV3U3S
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 22, 2021
