Former President Donald Trump is calling for President Joe Biden to "resign in disgrace" amid the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan during the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.
Trump made the remark in a statement sent to followers on Sunday.
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"It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy," the statement said.
Trump went on to say that Biden resigning "shouldn't be a big deal, because he wasn't elected legitimately in the first place!"
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war, the Associated Press reported. Insurgents stormed across the country, capturing all major cities in a matter of days.
Biden is the fourth U.S. president to confront challenges in Afghanistan, but he wasn't alone in planning to withdraw troops. The Trump administration last year had negotiated terms with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. After being elected, Biden established a deadline of August 31 to have all troops back in the U.S., before the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
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Republicans have slammed Biden, saying his withdrawal of troops is responsible for the current crisis in Afghanistan. Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden over the situation, saying the withdrawal should have "been done much better."
The Biden administration fired back by saying their hands were tied with the deal they inherited from the Trump administration.
"It was preordained," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. "According to that agreement that was negotiated by the United States, not this administration, but the previous one, if our forces remain there in great numbers after May 1, they could have become the targets of violence."
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the country fell faster than the Biden administration expected, but it's not their fault the Afghan military could not hold off the Taliban.
"At the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the Afghan security forces, we could not give them the will and they ultimately decided that they would not fight for Kabul and they would not fight for the country," Sullivan said.
In a statement last month, Biden underscored his decision to withdraw from the country, saying the U.S. couldn't afford "to remain tethered to policies creating a response to a world as it was 20 years ago."
"We went for two reasons: one, to bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, as I said at the time. The second reason was to eliminate al Qaeda's capacity to deal with more attacks on the United States from that territory," he said. "We accomplished both of those objectives — period."
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