Three years after Afghanistan toppled Biden’s approval ratings, could it come back to haunt Kamala Harris’ presidential bid?
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan left a stain on President Joe Biden’s reputation from which he never fully recovered. Three years after those chaotic scenes unfolded in the Middle East, could they come back to haunt Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid?
Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris has sought to position herself as central to the achievements of the Biden administration but separate from its failures. For the most part, she has pulled it off. Or, as she put it, she has been “unburdened by what has been.”
A survey by Democratic polling firm Blueprint 2024 days after Biden exited the race found that Harris had a unique opportunity to define herself more favorably than Biden. Most voters did not credit Harris with Biden’s signature accomplishments, nor did they blame her for the shortcomings. Nearly seven in 10 voters said Harris was not responsible for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Republicans are hoping to change that. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, has sought to tie his Democratic opponent to the Afghanistan withdrawal, repeatedly pointing out that Harris said she was the last person in the room when Biden decided to pull troops out by August 31, 2021. She has also described the move as “courageous.”
“She had the final vote”, Trump said at a rally in North Carolina last week. “She had the final say, and she was all for it.”
He sought to pin blame on her again Monday while speaking to the National Guard Association of the United States in Detroit, going even further to claim that the withdrawal is what led to other international conflicts that began after the drawdown.
“Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around”, Trump said. “It gave us Russia going into Ukraine. It gave us the October 7 attack on Israel, because it gave us lack of respect.”
On the anniversary of the August 26 suicide bombing, a video of Harris telling CNN anchor Dana Bash that she was the last person in the room and that she felt “comfortable” with the situation went viral. The clip was shared by GOP top dogs from House Speaker Mike Johnson to Trump adviser Jason Miller.
“The Biden-Harris administration inherited a mess from Donald Trump”, Harris’ campaign said in a Monday statement. “Trump wants America to forget that he had four years to get out of Afghanistan, but failed to do it.”Chaos in Afghanistan: Final Days Before Drawdown
On August 30, 2021, after evacuating more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan, the U.S. military completed its exit from America’s longest war.
The decision to withdraw in 2021 is widely seen as a direct result of the timeline that the Trump administration developed, but Biden’s call was the culmination of years of skepticism over the U.S. military’s ability to weaken the Taliban and strengthen the Afghan government.
As vice president, Biden was among the first in the Obama administration to cast doubt about strategic goals in the Middle East. On the campaign trail, Biden vowed to end wars in Afghanistan in the Middle East, conflicts that he said in 2020 “have cost us untold blood and treasure.
