House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has had a lot of political maneuvering to do this week. The California Republican has been vehemently critical of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis — while carefully avoiding criticism of former President Donald Trump and glossing over the fact that Biden was essentially following the Trump/Mike Pompeo plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. And reporters are pointing out how badly McCarthy is contradicting himself and flailing around as he tries to articulate a coherent argument.
At a news conference this week, McCarthy contemptuously said of Biden’s administration, “Why would you negotiate with the Taliban?” But negotiating with the Taliban is exactly what Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did in 2020. Pompeo met with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and Trump even talked about bringing the Taliban to Camp David.
Neocon Republican war hawks like Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and former National Security Adviser John Bolton have at least been consistent in their views, slamming the Trump/Pompeo plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan as badly flawed and slamming Biden for following it. And paleoconservative isolationist Patrick Buchanan, writing for the right-wing Antiwar.com website this month, has criticized U.S. involvement in Afghanistan as a failed nation-building experiment that was doomed from the start.
But McCarthy wants to have it both ways, attacking Biden as weak on national defense without directly criticizing Trumpist isolationism.
One reporter pointed out that Trump did something McCarthy is now criticizing Biden’s administration for: Trump negotiated with the Taliban:
"You said 'you shouldn't be negotiating with the Taliban.' Trump did that too, to be clear. So, I mean, was it wrong when he did it?" pic.twitter.com/rP7MNWVQFX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 27, 2021
Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman described McCarthy’s contradictions in detail:
And then he said no one believes there should be troops there.
So we’re all a bit unclear on what he believes here.
And, yes, we asked him about the dissonance between his position now and when Trump was in office.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) August 27, 2021
For ex: he also said in this news conference that we shouldn’t be negotiating with the taliban. I asked what about trump? He negotiated with them. And he said there were conditions. But still — he negotiated w the taliban.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) August 27, 2021
That means keeping troops in Afghanistan. https://t.co/VE3lwNwPDo
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) August 27, 2021
CNN’s Kendall Brown described McCarthy’s tortured logic this way:
Kevin McCarthy’s entire argument essentially boils down to, “we should have done exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump promised we’d do, restarting the war and provoking likely Taliban attacks on thousands of US military members.” https://t.co/C4i45HcGgX
— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) August 27, 2021
It’s notable that all of the people familiar with Bagram trying to explain why keeping it would not have been the panacea to the issues we’re currently facing are being just completely ignored by most coverage of this https://t.co/5619sUkFII
— Max (@aoxamaxoa) August 27, 2021
Kevin McCarthy is spewing dangerous lies about Afghanistan, because he’s a desperate and pathetic traitor.
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) August 25, 2021
