Trump Blames Harris for Afghan Exit Three Years After Attack

Riley Griffin and Skylar Woodhouse
·5-min read

(Bloomberg) -- Republican Donald Trump blamed Democratic 2024 rival Kamala Harris alongside President Joe Biden for the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he would demand the immediate resignation of any officials in the government involved with that decision.

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“Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump said Monday in an address to the National Guard Association conference in Detroit, seeking to tie the Democratic nominee to one of the biggest foreign policy disasters of Biden’s administration.

“When I take office we’ll ask for the resignations of every single official. We’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day,” Trump added.

Monday marked three years since a suicide bomber attack at Afghanistan’s Abbey Gate — one of the entrances to the airport in Kabul — killed 13 US service members and about 170 Afghan civilians. Even though 124,000 Afghans were evacuated during the US pullout that brought to an end the two-decade war, the event has come to epitomize the tumultuous exit from the country and the Taliban’s takeover — spurring some of the sharpest criticisms of Biden’s foreign policy.

Earlier Monday, Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery to mark the anniversary and to meet with family members of some of the service members killed in the attack. He also laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on camera.

White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that Trump’s appearance was “one way” to recognize the loss of the soldiers.

“Another way is to continue to work, maybe not with a lot of fanfare, maybe not with a lot of public attention, maybe not with TV cameras,” Kirby said, “to make sure that the families of the fallen and of those who were injured and wounded, not just at Abbey Gate, but over the course of the 20 some-odd years that we were in Afghanistan, have the support that they need.”

Trump has regularly assailed the Afghanistan withdrawal, claiming he would have led a more orderly exit that protected American lives, the country’s image abroad and prevented the Taliban from seizing the billions of dollars in US military equipment left behind. In a post to his Truth Social network earlier Monday, Trump called the withdrawal “BOTCHED” and “the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country.”

Trump forged a February 2020 deal with the Taliban, but not the Afghan government, that set an initial timetable for US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which Biden modified. Trump and the Republican Party blame Biden — and now Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee to succeed him after the sitting president dropped out of the 2024 race — for how the withdrawal was carried out.

“Not that we withdrew, but the way they did it. We were going to do it with dignity and strength,” Trump said in his address Monday.

He said the US “should have taken the soldiers out last,” adding that America’s adversaries “had a field day at our expense and our reputation.”

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Republicans in particular have seized on Harris’ comments in an interview from April 2021 — before the Abbey Gate attack — where she agreed with an interviewer who characterized her as the last person in the room when the sitting president made decisions and where Harris indicated she was comfortable with Biden’s withdrawal plans.

The White House acknowledged that the turbulent withdrawal underscored the need to better plan and more quickly implement evacuations from conflict zones in an after-action report in 2023, even as aides sought to put much of the blame on Trump. But that document was denounced by Republicans.

“Today and everyday, I mourn and honor them,” Harris said in a statement Monday that listed the names of those service members killed in the bomb attack. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for their pain and their loss.”

Her statement paid tribute to “all our servicemembers who served” in Afghanistan and said Biden had “made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war.”

“Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones,” Harris said. “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people and the homeland.”

Space National Guard

Trump also addressed other national security matters in his address Monday, receiving applause from the audience — a mix of attendees, some wearing camouflage fatigues and others in suits — when he called for shoring up resources to the National Guard.

The former president called for establishing a new cohort of the guard focused on space defense, an iron dome for missile defense and redeploying money for migrant shelters to aid homeless veterans.

Shortly before Trump took the stage, Captain Tyler Law of Georgia, who has served in the National Guard for 11 years, said he was an undecided voter. Law said he felt both Trump and Biden had been champions of the guard and also noted Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s military service — saying it was important to have leaders who had “served previously.”

“They really understand the plight of our service members and all that. So take it into consideration,” he said.

“I’m still looking out there, seeing what each party brings and what the best candidate is for the country,” Law added.

--With assistance from Akayla Gardner.

(Updates with additional details on event, remarks from attendees in paragraphs 17-21)

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