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Ann Coulter praises Biden on Afghanistan: Thank you ‘for keeping promise Trump made but then abandoned’

‘Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the b***s to do it,’ right-wing commentator says

Gustaf Kilander
Washington, DC
Wednesday 01 September 2021 20:19 BST
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Related video: Biden Stands Behind Decision To Withdraw

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter praised President Joe Biden for having the b***s to pull out of Afghanistan and called former President Donald Trump’s statements on the issue “wuss” and “BS”.

“Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the b***s to do it. Here are a few of Trump’s wuss, B.S. - I mean ‘masterful’ - tweets,” Ms Coulter tweeted on Tuesday and included a screenshot of some of Mr Trump’s Afghanistan statements supporting US troop withdrawal.

“Thank you, President Biden, for keeping a promise Trump made, but then abandoned when he got to office,” she wrote a few minutes earlier and included a tweet by The New York Times, which wrote that Mr Biden “vehemently defended his decision to end America’s war in Afghanistan”, and quoted the president as saying that the choice was “between leaving or escalating”.

“I was not going to extend this forever war,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday.

Mr Trump said several times during his 2016 campaign that US troops should leave Afghanistan.

In February of last year, the Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban that the US would end its troop presence if the Taliban didn’t provide support to terror groups.

Both Democrats and Republicans have criticised how the withdrawal was conducted, its chaotic nature, and that some allies and Americans are still in the country.

“My predecessor, the former president, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove US troops by 1 May, just months after I was inaugurated,” Mr Biden said in a speech on Tuesday forcefully defending the US withdrawal.

“It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the Afghan government,” Mr Biden added. “But it did authorise the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan. And by the time I came to office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001.”

“The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the 1 May 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,” the president claimed. “So we were left with a simple decision: either follow 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.”

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