Veteran of the Global War on Terror, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), joined Amy Robach on Good Morning America 3rd Hour on Wednesday to discuss her reaction to President Biden’s “chaotic, haphazard, and hasty” exit in Afghanistan. To watch the full interview, click here. Highlights are also below.
On her reaction to the Taliban celebrating as the last U.S. forces left Afghanistan:
“… this is gut-wrenching for me. To see that photo of General Donahue getting on to that last flight out of Afghanistan—it’s very surreal. I am so disappointed too at the way the exit happened, but also because I have not heard President Biden acknowledge the service and sacrifice of so many that spent the last twenty years of the Global War on Terror fighting these terrorists overseas and keeping our homeland safe. I think many of these veterans just desire a thank you, an acknowledgment from the president…Next, we absolutely must focus on evacuating the Americans that are left and those Afghan partners that have served us so well over the past twenty years.
On President Biden’s claim that the evacuation was an extraordinary success:
“This exit strategy was chaotic, it was haphazard, it was hasty. It was absolutely the worst planning and execution that I have seen throughout my military career. So, for him to call it a great success when now we have thirteen families that will not see their service members return home whole—this is not a success. If this were a success I would hate to see failure as determined by this administration. We have many Gold Star families that are hurting out there, we’ve added thirteen more families…and again, he is diminishing their service and sacrifice over the past twenty years by not even having a thoughtful withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
On President Biden and his allies deflecting blame:
“This is President Biden deflecting. The debate is not about withdrawing, the debate is about how the withdrawal was done…what he did was withdraw all of our troops knowing that Afghanistan was going to fall to the Taliban. He left American citizens in jeopardy, he left Special Immigrant Visa holders in jeopardy. Instead of withdrawing all of those troops all at once he should’ve allowed them to remain as we withdrew in a methodical manner.”
On President Biden’s claim that Americans remaining in Afghanistan had “19 warnings”:
“That is so disheartening that our president is placing the blame on Americans for not being able to evacuate…He had promised those Americans that there would be an embassy present—consular activities out of our embassy—remaining even after the troops withdrew. That was not true. So essentially he left our American citizens stranded in Afghanistan knowing that it was falling to the Taliban, knowing that the Taliban was controlling checkpoints blocking activities of Americans trying to get to the embassy, to the airport—and thus we have a hundred or more Americans that now cannot get out of the country.”
