Fact-Checking Biden’s Latest Statements on the Afghanistan Withdrawal

On Friday, President Joe Biden delivered a speech on the effort to evacuate Americans and our Afghan allies from Afghanistan. During his speech, Biden made false claims about the presence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the safety of Americans attempting to evacuate the country through its capital city of Kabul.

At one point, in response to a question about Biden’s message “to America’s partners around the world who have criticized not the withdrawal, but the conduct of that withdrawal and made them question America’s credibility on the world stage,” Biden responded, in part, by saying that al-Qaeda is “gone.”

More specifically he said: “Look, let’s put this thing in perspective here. What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as — as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.”

Biden’s statement is false. Al-Qaeda is not “gone.”