‘Dark Hour’: Trump, Pence Scold Joe Biden as Taliban Overtakes Kabul

Former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence issued blistering statements against the Biden administration as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban following the dramatic seizure of Kabul, now termed “Biden’s Saigon.”

“What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary,” Trump said in a statement shared on Twitter. “It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history.”

Shortly thereafter, Trump called upon “Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan.”

“The Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan dishonors the memory of those heroic Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion and all who bravely served there defending freedom these past 20 years,” Mike Pence tweeted Sunday afternoon. “God Bless Our Troops & Our Allies in this Dark Hour.”

Trump’s severe criticism of Biden comes one day after he accused his successor’s administration of running “out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him”:

Joe Biden gets it wrong every time on foreign policy, and many other issues. Everyone knew he couldn’t handle the pressure. Even Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said as much. He ran out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him — a plan that protected our people and our property, and ensured the Taliban would never dream of taking our Embassy or providing a base for new attacks against America. The withdrawal would be guided by facts on the ground.

After I took out ISIS, I established a credible deterrent. That deterrent is now gone. The Taliban no longer has fear or respect for America, or America’s power. What a disgrace it will be when the Taliban raises their flag over America’s Embassy in Kabul. This is complete failure through weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence.

The Biden administration has been working to lay the blame for Afghanistan’s fall squarely at Trump’s feet, neglecting the fact that Biden himself said just over a month ago that U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan would be peaceful, dignified, and unlike the horror of Saigon in 1975.

“Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam?” Biden was asked on July 8.

“None whatsoever,” Biden replied. “Zero. What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

Over the weekend, just a little over a month after Biden’s prediction, the Taliban overtook Afghanistan as American troops were deployed to help evacuate the U.S. Embassy.