Getty, Trump ad Trump, left, and right, two scenes from the video.
Former President Donald Trump’s PAC has released an ad that sharply criticizes President Joe Biden on Afghanistan. You can watch it later in this article.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is among those pushing the ad on Twitter. Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter, “Joe Biden left Americans stranded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. He is a disgrace and a failure!!!” It has had more than 760,000 views on Trump Jr.’s wall alone as of September 2, 2021.
Biden has defended his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, saying, in a press conference, that the withdrawal was successful. “Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history,” Biden said, according to a transcript of his speech posted by Rev.com. “…
The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and our intelligence professionals.”
Here’s what you need to know:
The Ad Shows Scenes of Chaos in Afghanistan
The video starts out with a clip of Biden saying, “Afghanistan can not be used as a terrorist base,” and then a narrator says, “Afghanistan has become the Disneyland for terrorists.”
Biden is then shown saying, “We planned for every contingency,” but a narrator says, “Total chaos. It’s a failure.”
Scenes of chaos are shown, including Afghan people running alongside a U.S. military aircraft. Scenes are then shown of Biden looking at his watch as caskets of the American service members who died in the Kabul airport attack are shown. You can read about those service members here.
A U.S. general is shown admitting, “We did not get everybody out.” A woman says on camera, “If this isn’t failure, what does failure look like exactly,” and Biden is then shown walking away.
The video shared by Trump Jr. was initially tweeted by Taylor Budowich, “Director of Communications for Save America and Donald J Trump, the 45th POTUS.”
He wrote, “NEW AD: A heartbreaking loss for the United States and its great Military. We must have hostages released and our Military equipment returned, NOW!” Save America is Donald Trump’s official PAC. Although Trump has not announced whether he plans to run for president again, the ad certainly has a campaign-like feel, which will increase speculation. The ad says at the bottom that it was released by the “save america jfc,” and was not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. It includes a link to Trump’s website.
According to Ballotpedia, “Save America is a leadership PAC created by President Donald Trump (R) on November 9, 2020, following the 2020 presidential election. It raised $31.5 million and spent $343,000 in the final two months of 2020.”
According to the Federal Election Commission, says Ballotpedia, “A leadership PAC is a political committee that is directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained or controlled by a candidate or an individual holding a federal office. The committee is not an authorized committee of the candidate or office holder, and is not affiliated with an authorized committee of a candidate or office holder.”
Biden Has Touted the Number of People Evacuated
In the press conference, Biden said, “We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.”
He has repeatedly tried to place blame on Trump for the state of Afghanistan when he took over.
“By the time I came to office the Taliban was in it’s strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces. But if we stayed, all bets were off,” Biden said, according to the transcript.
“So we were left with a simple decision, either through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war and I was not extending a forever exit.”
Read the full transcript of Biden’s latest press release here. Trump has been criticized by some for the deal he cut with the Taliban while in office, while others don’t believe Trump’s deal forced Biden’s hand on withdrawal in the way he did it.
READ NEXT: These Are the 13 Marines & Service Members Who Died in the Afghanistan Attack at Kabul Airport.