Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New York Times Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper weighed in on the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan amid reports of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing his country.
According to Cooper, “in so many ways,” the Taliban taking over Afghanistan following the United States’ withdrawal of troops is “completely” on President Joe Biden.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, “Why does our engagement there continue to vex the United States and its decisions?”
“It’s a really good question, Mika, and it has a long, complicated answer,” Cooper replied. “But one is that … Joe Biden for 20 years has sort of thought that he knew more about Afghanistan than anybody else. He was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was in the Obama White House, where he argued strongly in favor of a much-reduced American footprint in Afghanistan, and he was overruled by his president. And he finally gets this chance now, as president, to do things the way he thought things should have been done all along. So, in so many ways, this is completely on President Biden. And to his credit, he has been owning it. He has not backed away from the decision he’s made. But as we can see, the catastrophic results are sort of on display right now.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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