Exclusive — Rep. Ryan Zinke on Disastrous Afghanistan Withdrawal: Biden-Harris Is Administration of ‘Abandonment’

By Hannah Knudsen

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have embraced a policy of abandonment, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), a former Navy SEAL, told Breitbart News Daily after the third anniversary of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal passed, resulting in the loss of 13 troops.

• “Yesterday was the anniversary of Abbey Gate, and I was on the phone call with some of the Gold Star families,” he said on Tuesday, noting that tremendous pain remains.

  “And they feel like they were lied to. Afghanistan, to me, is abandonment. It was singularly the most catastrophic withdrawal of a U.S. force, and, one can argue, in military history. We lost 13. We could have lost thousands just as easy,” he said, explaining that America also lost the trust of its allies.

  “Our enemies don’t fear us. … We abandoned our allies and U.S. citizens that were there — thousands of them. … We had interpreters that fought alongside us being hung out of Blackhawks, and we had pilots that we trained being stoned to death, and I think that led to uncertainty of American strength and withdrawal that led to Ukraine. We see China pushing hard, and we see Russian submarines in Venezuela aggressively moving in the Caribbean, which is, you know, Monroe Doctrine. So, Afghanistan, itself, to me, was, with Biden and Harris, a policy of abandonment but also a policy of untruth because they have lied about it,” Zinke said, noting that it is stunning that they are still going back and blaming former President Donald Trump.

  “They’re still going back and blaming it on Trump as they blame the economy on Trump. They blame the riots on Trump. They blame Afghanistan on Trump,” he said, noting the ramifications of the U.S. abandoning its allies at that time.

  “So, when other allies look at this, [they] go, ‘Hey, you know what? … I don’t want to hang out with the U.S. I don’t want to go toe to toe with the U.S. because, you know, they’re not going to be there.’ … The State Department actively prevented — there was members of Congress that went over there and worked to spring people that were trapped despite the best efforts by the State Department to stop it,” Zinke pointed out.

  “It’s truly outrageous … and then Harris comes back: ‘There’s no problem. The withdrawal went fine,'” he added, as Harris admitted to being the last person in the room when that decision was made.