(USA Features) Former President Donald Trump used the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to blast an “incompetent” President Joe Biden after his “rushed” pullout from Afghanistan in an interview with Fox Digital.
Trump that there has “never been a greater embarrassment” to the United States than the chaotic, deadly withdrawal because, he said, of “an incompetent person as the leader of our country.”
He called the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks a “terrible day in our history,” but he pointed to a “terrible week in our history recently.”
“To have that embarrassment to take place in Afghanistan with the same people who did the damage 20 years ago — it is the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country,” Trump said.
“There has never been anything like this. It looks like we fled, and it is all because we have an incompetent person as the leader of our country,” Trump told Fox’s streaming network.
Trump, who made a deal with the Taliban as president for a May 2021 troop withdrawal, said this “never would have happened” if he was still in the White House.
“I didn’t even stick to it because I wanted to get out by May 1, and when they violated conditions, we bombed and did a lot of things,” Trump noted.
“They adhered to one condition— don’t kill Americans or soldiers,” he continued.
“We hadn’t lost a soldier or an American in 18 months in Afghanistan. It was going along very well,” Trump added.
Biden ordered all U.S. military and diplomatic forces out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31 after the Taliban retook the vast majority of the country over the span of about 11 days.
“They knew that — and that’s why they never would have come in to fill this vacuum,” Trump noted further.
The former president also said that when Biden withdrew all forces, “we created this big open wound, a void, and the Taliban just came in and filled it, and within 24 hours, they controlled the whole country.”
“When I heard they were taking the military out, I thought, that’s inconceivable,” Trump said.
When he was asked whether wanted to address Gold Star and military families and veterans, Trump said, “It would be easier, and probably more politically correct, for me to just say, ‘hang in there,’ and just, ‘something will happen.’”
“But they should be very angry,” Trump said. “They cannot feel even a little bit good or optimistic, because we have an administration that doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
He also said that there is “no way this should have ever happened.”
“They should have never taken the military out first—you take the military out last, after all of the people are out,” Trump said, referring to previous plans to withdraw all American citizens, contractors, and Afghan allies before pulling out all U.S. troops.
“No man, no woman left behind,” Trump said. “But we left, what could be, thousands.”
Asked about the future, Trump said the U.S. has no choice but to “move forward.”
“We have no choice—we have to do what we have to do,” Trump said. “We’re an embarrassed country, and we’ve never had anything like this.”