For two days we’ve reported on the fact that the Right is now blaming Biden for abandoning Afghanistan. Yesterday we went through the no-win situation in which the U.S. Government stood. One of the things that the MAGAs are having a hard time remembering is that it was Trump who gave the Taliban legitimacy, especially in contemplating inviting them to Camp David to talk things out.

As one would expect from a new president, fairly or unfairly, Biden blamed Trump for leaving Biden in such a sh*t position. Thus, Wallace honed in on the fact that Pompeo was smacking the blame right back.

Pompeo said: From Mediaite:

“Every president confronts challenges. This president confronted a challenge in Afghanistan, he has utterly failed to protect the American people from this challenge.”

But Pompea’s actions were near identical to Biden’s.

Wallace kept up the pressure by noting that Pompeo struck an agreement with the Taliban last year to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by May. Wallace also rolled footage of Trump complaining about the U.S’ “ridiculous” continued presence in the region.

That’s one of the big ones. Everyone knows that Trump wanted troops out of Afghanistan, and whatever Trump did on the international stage, one often wondered whether Putin was behind it. It is not like Trump had a lot of international experience or priorities before coming into office. Well, he certainly had one priority. It seemed like his every move favored Putin.

Pompeo responded by defending his diplomatic efforts, and he ripped Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani over his conduct in office (Ghani reportedly fled the country earlier today). Wallace concluded his questioning of Pompeo’s record by noting that Pompeo was the first American secretary of state to ever meet with the Taliban for those talks.

“Do you regret giving the Taliban that legitimacy?” Wallace asked. “Do you regret pressing the Afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners, which they did, some of whom are now back on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban?”

“You make peace with your enemies,” Pompeo said, before adding shortly afterwards that “we never trusted the Taliban.”

If you don’t trust your enemies, it seems hard to make peace with them, at least not until they are entirely defeated and no president, from W. through Biden was able to defeat the Taliban. The Soviets couldn’t do it before them. It is impossible to win a war in Afghanistan without one million troops from all over the world, even then it wouldn’t be “easy.”

By the way, Pompeo has lost weight, he might be looking at a run for the Senate from Kansas or the bigger job, tough to tell. All one knows is that the man has always been driven and aspires to much bigger stuff. He isn’t the type that looks better with weight loss. For whatever reason, he’s the type that looks better at the weight he carried.

Chris Wallace throws Mike Pompeo's past praise for the Taliban back in his face.

"Do you regret giving the Taliban that legitimacy? Do you regret pressing the Afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners… some of whom are now back on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban?" pic.twitter.com/cfISbYYgTD

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 15, 2021

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