McKenzie, Milley Contradict Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal

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BUCK: A little bit of attention put on Afghanistan today because of some testimony up on Capitol Hill, and General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was testifying. The CENTCOM commander McKenzie was saying… Let’s start with that, actually. Here he is saying that, you know, ’cause we’re all looking back at this debacle of the withdrawal and how it went down the way that it did. CENTCOM Commander McKenzie is saying that they wanted to leave 2,500 troops.

MCKENZIE: I won’t share my personal recommendation to the president. But I will give you my honest opinion, and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation. I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. And I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time. Those are my personal views. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government.

BUCK: Clay, this is something that’s gonna be debated a lot because the Biden administration has now tried to say that unless they withdrew on the previously agreed-to timetable the Taliban was gonna engage in a major offensive which would have brought U.S. troops into combat in a substantial way. But if that’s the case, then the 2,500 number doesn’t really make sense.

Because the 2,500 can work to support Afghan forces that were fighting, which, as we know, all melted away and stopped fighting very rapidly. But that only worked as long as the ceasefire was in place between the U.S. and the Taliban, which had been in place for a long time — since the Trump administration. If it was gonna be open warfare with the Taliban, we’re gonna need more than 2,500 troops. But if what the Biden administration says is true, then why were the generals saying, “Leave behind 2,500 troops”? You see what I’m saying? Doesn’t make sense. Something’s up.

CLAY: Yeah. And, honestly, I think we’ve caught Joe Biden in another lie, Buck, because if you play cut 26 here, you just heard the statements from McKenzie about wanting 2,500 troops. On August 19th Joe Biden told George Stephanopoulos exactly the opposite of that. He’s basically saying his generals never said that; so somebody’s lying here, and it sounds to me it’s Biden.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline and they wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.

BIDEN: No, they didn’t! It was split. (sputtering) That… That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

BIDEN: No, not at… Not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. They didn’t argue against that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no one…? No one told you…? Your military advisers did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?

BIDEN: No. No one said that to me, that I can recall.

BUCK: Joe Biden, first of all, what he can recall, to be fair, is an open question.

CLAY: He really may not recall.

BUCK. Being honest with everybody, there’s a chance (impression), “Yeah, no joke! I don’t remember.” We could all understand that that might be the reality. Nonetheless, does not make us sleep soundly at night in this country. But, anyway, beyond that, Clay, someone’s lying. Either Joe doesn’t remember or someone’s lying. I’m not sure which one’s better or worse.

CLAY: I think Joe Biden’s lying and I think it’s also possible — again, I think Joe Biden’s defense for a lot of these lies is honestly his incompetence and his failed mental state. I was looking at this. We talked about the Axios poll and how no one trusts Joe Biden anymore. I snagged this because I looked at it, and I was like, “This is crazy.

“Fifty-six percent of people right now, Buck, don’t believe that Joe Biden has mental faculties capable of being president.” Fifty-six percent, according to the most recent poll that is out there analyzing his overall mental state — and, frankly, I question who the 44% are. I guess they’re Democrats.

BUCK: Keep in mind, we’ve reached that number with 95% of the media willing to lie in favor of Joe Biden’s mental state. So think about what it would be if we had an honest media.

CLAY: No, it’s very well said. It’s a total and complete joke.