Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “surrender agreement with the Taliban” led directly to the unfolding situation of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan as the U.S. military withdraws.
Cheney said, “We know the Taliban has never renounced al Qaeda. This is one of the things that was such an indefensible step by the Trump administration. When President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo designed to sign a surrender agreement with the Taliban.”
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “President Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McCaster, basically accused Secretary of State Pompeo at the time and the president. He called it a surrender agreement.”
Cheney said, “It is, absolutely. We sat down and negotiated with terrorists because we completely excluded the Afghan government from those negotiations. We gave credibility to the Taliban. Secretary Pompeo told us that the Taliban was going to renounce al Qaeda. They told us that the Taliban was going to fight terrorists. They forced the Afghan national government —we did, to release 5,000 prisoners. We completely undercut the Afghan national government, absolutely emboldened the Taliban. We know from public reporting that the moment that agreement was signed, the Taliban went to members of the Afghan National Army and said, the Americans are leaving you, you should lay down your arms when the time comes, or we’ll kill you and your families. That led directly to the catastrophe we’re seeing today.”
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