GOP Rep. Mast: Taliban Has 'Total Control' When News Cycle Moves on from Afghanistan, Which it Has 'in Many Cases'

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) argued that when the news cycle completely moves away from Afghanistan, “and people really aren’t talking about Afghanistan in the media, then the Taliban, at that point, have total control, when the rest of the world is not paying attention to what’s going on there.”

Mast stated that the Taliban is “going to try to extort the United States for every dollar, cent, piece of munition, vote at the U.N., you name it, anything that they can…do, if they think that they have the leverage because there’s a U.S. citizen or an asset remaining in Afghanistan. And here’s one of the bigger concerns on that as well: You and I are still talking about this right now. But we know that the media cycle, in many cases, has moved on from talking about a lot of what’s happening in Afghanistan, certainly these SIV applicants and others. When this cycle totally moves on and people really aren’t talking about Afghanistan in the media, then the Taliban, at that point, have total control, when the rest of the world is not paying attention to what’s going on there.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett