During a Tuesday appearance on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) offered his criticism of President Joe Biden’s mismanagement of the U.S. troops’ withdrawal out of Afghanistan.
Kennedy described the withdrawal, which left behind an estimated 100-200 Americans, U.S. military equipment, and Afghan allies in the Taliban-led country, as “the Mona Lisa of incompetence.” He said Biden’s handling of Afghanistan would leave a “tattoo” on the president and the United States.
“[W]hat we have witnessed, and I mean, by we, I mean our world, is stunning incompetence, breath-taking incompetence, the Mona Lisa of incompetence,” Kennedy declared. “Now, there are good arguments to withdraw. There are good arguments to keep a limited force, air cover in Afghanistan, but there are no good arguments for what the world has watched.”
“President Biden is going to have to spend an enormous amount of time … talking to our allies in the world telling them what happened,” he added.
Kennedy called on the Biden administration “to grow some oranges” and stand up to the Taliban to get everyone out.
“We need to try to fix as much as we can, and I don’t believe we have all Americans out,” Kennedy stated. “I know we don’t have all of our interpreters, our allies out, and the White House needs to grow some oranges and get tougher with the Taliban and tell them, ‘Look, we’re going to get our people out.’ I mean, that’s my biggest concern. And yeah, the equipment is important, and the aftermath … that’s all-important, but we got to get our people out. When you surrounder like this, you don’t leave your people behind, and we did.”
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