Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden falsely claimed on Wednesday that President Donald Trump was “coddling terrorists” around the world.
“And then we’re gonna get to work fixing the mess that President Trump and Vice President Pence have created, both at home and abroad,” Biden claimed. “Through four years of mismanagement and coddling of terrorists and thugs around the world.”
Biden provided no evidence to substantiate his claim.
WATCH:
.@JoeBiden just accused @realDonaldTrump of "coddling terrorists"
Reminder: Biden opposed the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. He also opposed the strike on Qasem Soleimani. pic.twitter.com/hUJCtj16wu
— Chris Martin (@chrisjdmartin) August 12, 2020
Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs, who is a national security expert, responded to Biden’s remarks by writing on Twitter: “There isn’t enough spin in the world to claim the Trump admin has ‘coddled terrorists.’ He relaxed the [Rules of Engagement] so that the military [could] more effectively carry out a fast-tempo campaign. And the DoD rightly placed the blame for higher civilian casualties on ISIS.”
There isn’t enough spin in the world to claim the Trump admin has “coddled terrorists.” He relaxed the ROE so that the military cld more effectively carry out a fast-tempo campaign. And the DoD rightly placed the blame for higher civilian casualties on ISIS.
— Rebeccah Heinrichs (@RLHeinrichs) August 12, 2020
Trump has taken out numerous top terrorists around the world throughout the course of his administration. Early on, The Washington Post reported that under Trump’s leadership, according to “Brett McGurk, the State Department’s senior envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition” at the time, the U.S. military’s gains in the war against ISIS had “dramatically accelerated.”
During the Trump-era, the U.S. government has taken out or directly assisted other nations in taking out:
- Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; top ISIS leader
- Qassem Soleimani; Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander
- Qasim al-Rimi; leader of Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula
- Abdelmalek Droukdel; head of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb
- Hajji Taysir; senior ISIS leader
- Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis; founder of the Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades
- Abu Ali al-Janubi; ISIS’ senior media director
- Hamza Bin Laden; Al Qaeda senior leader and son of Osama bin Laden
- Abu Hasan al-Muhajir; top ISIS spokesperson
- Asim Umar; head of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
The Trump administration has also designated white supremacist groups as terrorist organizations and pushed to designate a neo-Nazi group as a terrorist organization.
The RAND Corporation, a non-profit institution that provides objective research services and public policy analysis, said that “homegrown terrorism increased” during the Obama-Biden administration.
Time Magazine reported:
Yet some analysts argue that by adapting a less forward-leaning U.S. approach, the world has grown more dangerous on Obama’s watch. The rise of ISIS has unnerved nations around the world, and triggered refugee flows that has sent cracks deeper into European fault lines. Both Russia and China are expanding their spheres of influence without significant U.S. pushback. North Korea keeps firing missiles, and Iran—despite 2015’s nuclear accord—shows little sign of reforming its theocratic ways. Libya has turned violent, and largely ungoverned, since the U.S. and NATO helped Libyan rebels remove longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. All of these places can turn into incubators for terror.
When former President Barack Obama was making the decision of whether to go into Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden, Joe Biden was one of the only people in the administration to allegedly advise the president against going in and getting bin Laden, according to a fact-check by The Washington Post.
In fact, declassified documents from the raid inside bin Laden’s Pakistani compound in 2011 revealed that he wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama to make “totally unprepared” Biden the next President of the United States, predicting that Biden would lead the U.S. “into a crisis.”
Bin Laden instructed terrorists to “not to target visits by U.S. Vice President Biden” and to instead focus on Obama or then-CIA Director David Petraeus.
“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him will automatically make Biden take over the presidency for the remainder of the term, as it is the norm over there,” Bin Laden wrote. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the United States into a crisis.”