After having ignored Afghanistan on Monday’s show, MSNBC’s ReidOut host Joy Reid circled back to being a Biden flunkie by insisting all is going well for the Biden administration on Afghanistan, saying they’ve done “a thorough job” in Kabul despite a lack of “burden-sharing” on the part of NATO allies.
Reid also made sure to level bad-faith attacks on Team Biden (with some help from MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance), saying the only way critics would be satisfied with what’s transpired in Afghanistan would be Biden “promis[ing] to leave troops in there for another 20 years.”
Following two teases, Reid gave Afghanistan the c-block with an opening that sounded as though it was sent to her by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain (click “expand”):
Late this afternoon, President Biden announced he will not be extending the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan beyond the August 31 deadline. That leaves one week to complete the evacuation of U.S. citizens and allies. After a rough start, the U.S. military has ramped up its efforts, with about 71,000 people evacuated in the last 10 days. Almost 22,000 were flown out of Afghanistan just yesterday, including more than 4,000 Americans and their family members. It also includes three babies who were delivered aboard those flights. And given that we were told that the target number of people to be evacuated was about 80,000, that sure sounds like they are on target. Joining me now from Kabul is Jane Ferguson, special correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. And, Jane, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here. So, let’s talk about this. It seems — the number we were given at the outset was that there were about 80,000 people that needed to come out. They’re — they’re on track, it seems, to make it by the one-week deadline. So, where is the pressure coming from to keep troops in longer? Is this — is this more — I don’t know. Where is the pressure coming from to keep troops there beyond August 31?
Reporting from Kabul, PBS’s Jane Ferguson gave her a serviceable summation of what’s transpired and how life has continued to be “chaotic” for Afghans and American citizens as the August 31 deadline approaches.
Instead of thinking critically, Reid kvetched that the U.S.’s job has been made more difficult by allies who’ve supposedly sat around doing nothing:
[T]he United States did not do this invasion and occupation of Afghanistan alone. This was an entire NATO operation. So it’s presumed that it is all on the United States to do all the evacuations. Are any other countries, any of our NATO allies attempting to also get people out? Or is this an all-U.S.-military all-by-itself operation?
Ferguson immediately dismantled this, saying that while the U.S. controls the airfield, there are troops from countries like Canada, Italy, Poland, and the U.K. that she’s seen (with the Brits being “heavily involved in — in pulling people out”), but sure enough, Reid dismissed this fact-check.
With friends in the administration to shill for, Reid ignored Ferguson so she could tell Nance that “it sounds to me as if the burden-sharing isn’t exactly equal” with “all of these NATO countries that are essentially saying, ‘it’s all up to you, the United States.’”
Reid continued, lauding the work of Team Biden:
And it sounds to me like the military are doing quite a thorough job. I mean, they’ve gotten a lot of people out. You wouldn’t know it from sometimes listening to the coverage, but they have gotten a lot of people out. What do you make of the fact that this isn’t a shared responsibility, so much as it’s being made only America’s responsibility?
A few moments later, Reid went the Jen Rubin route in almost sucking up to the Taliban by boasting that “it seems” as though they’ve “belatedly realiz[ed] that their fourth century politics may not work for their future as a country” and will need an educated citizenry that includes women.
Nance also shared in this sudden respect for the Taliban. Knocking their previous incarnation as “a guerrilla base camp” with a flag, Nance said “they have to run a nation state and they want to be players in that region and they’re going to have to make those concessions.”
“I think we’ll beat 100,000 by the end of next week, and I — I look forward to hearing those naysayers tell us that this was the worst military disaster in history,” he added.
Going to break, Reid lamented that “the narrative” going forward will be getting 100,000 people out was “a failure” and would serve as proof that there’s nothing “that Biden could do other than promise to leave troops in there for another 20 years in order to satisfy some folks.”
When you’re still arguing that those who disapprove of the administration have done so because they’re a neocon, one should try to improve on their hare-brained arguments.
Joy Reid’s insistence that everything’s just peachy in Afghanistan was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as Liberty Mutual, Lincoln, ServPro, and Skechers. Follow the links to see their contact information that the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from August 25, click here.
