During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” President Joe Biden said “there was no consensus” on the intelligence on the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, and that intelligence reports said a Taliban takeover was “more likely to be some time by the end of the year.”
ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked, “Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong or did you downplay it?”
Biden responded, “I think, there was no consensus. If you go back and look at the intelligence reports, they said that it was more likely to be some time by the end of the year.”
Stephanopoulos then said, “You didn’t put a timeline out when you said it was highly unlikely. You just said flat out it’s highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.”
Biden stated, “Yeah. Well, the question was whether or not it — the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was going to just collapse, they were going to give up. I don’t think anybody anticipated that.”
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