Democrat President Joe Biden stumbled through an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos that aired in-part on Wednesday, claiming that his withdraw from Afghanistan could not have been better executed and not remembering the dates of events that happened this week.
“When you look at what’s happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgment?” Stephanopoulos asked.
Biden struggled to answer the question, responding:
Look, I don’t think it was a fair, look, it was a simple choice, George. When the, when the Taliban, let me back up and put it another way. When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government get in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off. That was, you know, I’m not, that’s what happened. That’s simply what happened.
“But we’ve all seen the pictures,” Stephanopoulos said. “We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We’ve seen Afghans falling — ”
“That was was four days ago, five days ago,” Biden incorrectly claimed.
The image of the hundreds of people crammed into a C-17 plane was from August 15th, which is three days ago. The video of the people falling from the planes is from August 16th, which is two days ago.
Stephanopoulos later asked Biden: “So, you don’t think this could have been handled, this [exit] could have been handled better in any way? No mistakes?”
“No, I, I, I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that, we’re gonna 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,” Biden responded. “I don’t know how that happened.”
“So for you, that was always priced into the decision?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Yes,” Biden responded.
WATCH:
EXCLUSIVE: Pressed on whether the U.S.'s exit from Afghanistan could have been handled better, Pres. Biden tells @GStephanopoulos, "The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing—I don't know how that happens." https://t.co/mH1AyWI5lb pic.twitter.com/osAwdDQy2L
— ABC News (@ABC) August 18, 2021