President Biden’s Afghanistan disaster was so eclipsing that it was forcing the media to actually do some real journalism for a change. And during an exclusive interview with Biden on Wednesday, ABC’s normally partisan chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos grilled him on how he had misled the American people on how smoothly the withdrawal would go and how fast the Afghan military and political system would crumble.
The first bit of the interview shared on World News Tonight featured Stephanopoulos coming out of the gate swinging with a question about Biden’s mischaracterization of the withdrawal back in July:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong or did you downplay it?
BIDEN: I think, there was no consensus. If you go back and look back on the intelligence reports, they said that it was more likely to be by some time at the end of the year.
Stephanopoulos shot back with the fact that Biden had never given a timeline. “You didn't put a timeline out when you said it was highly unlikely. You just said flat out it's highly unlikely the Taliban would take over,” he said.
“Yeah. Well, the question was whether or not it -- the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the -- somehow the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was just going to collapse, they were going to give up. I don't think anybody anticipated that,” Biden stumbled while trying to dance around the truth.
The next set of questions dealt with the horrific images we saw of Afghans desperately clinging onto the side of a C-17 cargo plane and falling to their death trying to escape, with one being crushed to death in the landing gear hatch. Biden’s reaction? Get over it:
STEPHANOPOULOS: We've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling --
BIDEN: That was four days ago, five days ago.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
BIDEN: What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.
No, Mr. President. It was just three days ago and not ancient history. Take responsibility for your incompetence and inept planning.
But Biden didn’t care that he was getting innocent people killed, sentencing Afghans to a life of misery, and left American civilians trapped behind enemy lines. Stephanopoulos even questioned him about whether or not there was a better way for things to be done, Biden disagreed:
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you don't think this could have been handled – this actually could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?
BIDEN: No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that -- we're going to go back in hindsight and look. But the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened.
At the end of a press conference about his administration’s recommendation for Covid booster shots, Biden turned his back on the press pool, the American people, and accountability when he left the podium and refused to take questions.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s World News Tonight
August 18, 2021
6:34:32 p.m. Eastern(…)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong or did you downplay it?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I think, there was no consensus. If you go back and look back on the intelligence reports, they said that it was more likely to be by some time at the end of the year.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't put a timeline out when you said it was highly unlikely. You just said flat out it's highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.
BIDEN: Yeah. Well, the question was whether or not it -- the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the -- somehow the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was just going to collapse, they were going to give up. I don't think anybody anticipated that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling --
BIDEN: That was four days ago, five days ago.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
BIDEN: What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you don't think this could have been handled – this actually could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?
BIDEN: No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that -- we're going to go back in hindsight and look. But the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So for you, that was always priced into the decision?
BIDEN: Yes.
[Cuts back to live]
DAVID MUIR: All right. Let's bring in George Stephanopoulos. George, I was watching that interview as it came in, a lot to unpack here. I know you're going to have a lot more on Good Morning America. But I wanted to double down here on two things you pressed the president on. The president claims that military leaders did not tell him to keep some sort of smaller footprint on the ground, 2,500 troops. And he also said U.S. intelligence did not predict a collapse this quickly?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, he was very firm on that, David. On the intelligence, first, he was saying, yes, people the Taliban might eventually take control, but no one expected it would happen with the speed and the rapidity that it happened, contradicting what we've heard from a lot of senators who got intelligence briefings, what some leaks from intelligence officials, as well.
But the President is very, very firm. He said that no one was predicting the Taliban could come into power this quickly, that the Afghan army, the Afghan political structure would just collapse over the course of a week.
And I was also surprised, he did take on those who say the military was advising him to keep a small U.S. force – group of U.S. forces there, about 2,500 troops there. He’s saying that is not the recommendation he got from the military and he firmly believes that it would have taken many more thousands of American troops to keep -- to keep Afghanistan stable if we indeed stayed.
MUIR: And George, I was also struck by this notion of the August 31 deadline. You pressed him on this. Will American troops be out if Americans remain, if some of those who helped us, the Afghan interpreters, if they’re still there, will the troops stay and help?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I pressed the president on that, and the president said American troops will stay until all Americans who want to leave can leave. He was slightly more equivocal on our Afghan allies, the interpreters and others who have helped us. But he committed everything possible to get them out.
MUIR: All right, our thanks to George Stephanopoulos, with us tonight.
