Fact-Checking Biden’s Claim That ‘Some of the Afghans Did Not Want to Leave Earlier’

He may be correct, but the statement is misleading.

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On August 16, the day after the Afghan President Ashrag Ghani fled the country and the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, President Joe Biden addressed the nation, emphasizing that he “stood squarely” behind his decision to withdraw troops from the country. 

In response to criticism that he should have evacuated Afghans sooner, Biden responded, by saying that: “some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier — still hopeful for their country.”

While Biden’s statement may be true, it’s misleading given the many thousands of Afghans who’d already registered their desire to go.

On June 4, more 20 lawmakers wrote to Biden expressing the need to evacuate Afghan allies and explaining the formation of the bipartisan group, “Honoring Our Promises Working Group,” which called on Biden to “prevent the Afghans who served by our side from being killed in the wake of our withdrawal by groups like the Taliban, ISIS, and Al Qaeda.”

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  1. Craig

    Biden bad, of course, always. The surrender of Afghanistan was signed in March 2020, endorsed by the President of the United States and executed by the Secretary of State. For those without a calendar, there were 13 months until the announced pulll-out date of May 2021. I understand that the visa process was difficult for Afghans (probably undermined by anti immigrant sentiment), but the US citizens that stayed well into 2021, and suddenly looked up from whatever they were doing in Aug 2021 and said, "wow, I think the US is leaving us behind", dont really have an excuse. Yes, Biden bad, execution sucks, but dont really give Trump a pass, as he had all the rest of 2020, to get US citizens out, maybe he was otherwise occupied. It is also a possibility that he had no intention of "solving Afghanistan" and withdrawing with Honor, but saw it as merely convenient to not have a raging war with the Taliban during the election. Is it such a stretch to think he was acting in his own self interest and not thinking about the consequences?

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    BrettH

    Thanks for the reporting y’all. Aside from Biden being far less of an obnoxious blowhard than the last guy to occupy the office, it’s still pretty insulting to treat the public writ large as complete dunces. I’m all for ending this 20 year debacle, but as Jonah pointed out it’s HOW you make the exit. This whole episode is so disgraceful.

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  3. Barndog

    What evidence do you have that he “may be correct”? Joe Biden is spinning his spin. Every time he opens his mouth, it’s nonsense. And I voted for this incompetent.

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  4. R. James

    This fact check needs to be fact checked. If you have 18,000 vetted Afghans backlogged for months and probably tens of thousands more who were denied a SIV, how is not an outright lie to say 'some Afghans did not want to leave earlier'. The BBC has been interviewing at least one person a day for the last week that's said they have been trying to get our for months. If Biden started the evacuation when he announced his withdrawal the crisis we see would not have been mitigated. This disaster is still unfolding as many allied and American citizens are unable to get to the airport or are even being turned away once they arrive. Biden has not even been in the White House for most of the week and is being contradicted by his own cabinet.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Biden is nuts on foreign policy at the moment.

    Just nuts.

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    Earl King

    By the thousands they have been applying and the SIV program according to all who personally knew those applying has been slow walked for month upon months.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    It's statements such as these that make me wonder how lucid Biden really is....

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      Earl King

      Or how mendacious he is....Al Qaeda gone from Afghanistan?

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