Shawn Collins, who served in the Navy JAG Corps and in Afghanistan, and is a Republican looking to unseat Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) in the midterms, told Breitbart News Saturday this weekend that there is a complete failure in leadership right now by the Commander-in-Chief, President Joe Biden, due to his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Host Matthew Boyle, Breitbart News’s Washington political editor, first asked Collins about his thoughts on what is happening in Afghanistan having served there.
“Well, first of all, my heart goes out to all of the Americans that are still in the country, and then the Afghan nationals who had America’s back for 20 years, and they’re kind of stranded right now,” Collins said. “But, my overall thought is that we have a complete failure in leadership right now by our commander-in-chief and everybody that’s serving under him right now, and they should be embarrassed. America is leaving that country right now with this dishonor after serving there honorably for 20 years. So I’m very disturbed by that.”
Collins was also asked about his thoughts on Biden’s botched withdrawal and trying to gaslight the American people into thinking the debate has been over whether to leave the country, rather than how we should leave, getting the Americans and allies out of the country, and not leaving the cache of weapons for the terrorists.
Collins said that is 100 percent correct. When Collins heard Biden’s comments on Monday about the situation, he said, “I was incredibly disappointed because it was very disingenuous, so he tried to frame the debate as, ‘Oh, I made the right decision in terms of withdrawing troops,’ and that’s not what the conversation was about.”
“There was bipartisan support for that. Let’s not forget that President Trump had already decided to withdraw all the troops on May 1. So President Biden comes into office and says, ‘Oh, I need a little bit more time to do an orderly withdraw,'” he added. “Presumably, meaning [Biden] actually putting plans in place to do this in an orderly manner. We now know that he did not do that. And what we got going on right now is far from orderly to complete chaos. And so for him to do that, the debate right now is, why is it happening in such a chaotic manner? You ask for three extra months, three extra months to plan for this, and it’s more chaos than would have happened under the previous administration.”
Boyle mentioned Porter, the member Collins is challenging, saying the congresswoman has yet to say something or intervene in anything regarding Afghanistan. Porter has presumably been missing in acting regarding Afghanistan. Collins said, “That’s what you get when you have a career politician in office.”
Collins explained what is happening with Porter and the rest of the far-left members in the House: “Joe Biden announces that we’re leaving Afghanistan and broadcast to the Taliban, ‘Hey, we’re leaving on September 1 to get your battle plans ready.’ Then Katie Porter and [Ilhan] Omar and the rest of the Progressive Caucus put out a statement on July 24th, applauding the President for doing this.”
“Now, that’s what you get when you have a person like Katie Porter, who’s been a professor her entire life. So she has in a real-world context, and you’re right, it is the job of people who are in Congress to speak up, but you can’t speak up on an issue like Afghanistan when you have no real-world experience or context to do it. And when you do speak up, you make statements like Katie Porter and [Ilhan] Omar made on the 24th of July,” Collins added, noting that he has that real-world experience that is needed to understand the situation.
Boyle, in the end, asked Collins how veterans, who are running for Congress, can change Washington for the better and be a check on the Biden administration if they are elected to Congress, adding that the midterms are approaching and there are a lot of veterans running. Boyle specifically asked what the path is.
“The path back is these midterm elections. They’re incredibly important, the ones we have coming up, one that I’m running in, in 2022. We are five seats away from taking back the House. We’re really close to taking back the Senate, and it’s very important that we take back both the House and the Senate,” Collins said. “An effective check on an incompetent presidential administration, which is the one that we have materializing right now, is to control the House, control Congress, control the House and the Senate. And that way, we can put a check on that at least until we’re able to get back into the 2024 presidential election and get a Republican back in office.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.
Follow Jacob Bliss on Twitter @jacobmbliss.