Cotton: If We Don’t Have Number of Americans in Afghanistan, Nothing Stops Biden from Leaving Them and Repeating Iran Hostage Crisis

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Faulkner Focus,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) stated that if the government doesn’t know how many American citizens are in Afghanistan, there’s nothing stopping President Joe Biden from pulling out of Afghanistan on August 31 and leaving “thousands” of Americans behind and that he’s increasingly worried about a repeat of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979.

Cotton said, [relevant remarks begin around 1:45] “In that ABC interview, he even had to be pressed to acknowledge that, yes, perhaps we’ll stay on the ground past August 31. But if our government can’t even say how many American citizens we have, what’s going to stop Joe Biden from rolling up things and flying out on August 31 with thousands of American citizens left behind? Let me just say this, Harris, a lot of people have been speaking this week about comparisons to Saigon in 1975. What increasingly worries me is the scenario of Tehran in 1979, when 52 hostages held by the ayatollah paralyzed American foreign policy for more than a year. Imagine if the Taliban has effective hostage control of thousands of Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan. It would be a catastrophe.”

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