House Dems issue response to GOP report on Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan

The House Democrats on the Foreign Affairs Committee released their own memo on President Biden's chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan after committee Republicans released a report criticizing the president for what went down at the time.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, released a GOP-led report disputing Biden's claims that his hands were tied to the agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021. It also said State Department officials had no plan for helping Americans and allies out while there were still troops in the region to protect them.

McCaul's report also noted the failure to adequately respond to terror threats ahead of the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban likely had access after the withdrawal to $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons and up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government.

But New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the Democrat ranking member of the committee, released a dueling report in response to the GOP-led report, accusing Republicans of criticizing the Biden administration for the withdrawal for political purposes and failing to offer feasible alternatives.

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Meeks also said Republicans did not involve Democrat members in their report and stressed that plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan began under the Trump administration.

He said in the memo's summary that Republicans sought to avoid facts involving Trump, including "his committing the United States to a full, date-specific withdrawal in a deal he negotiated with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government or any reference to the rights of Afghan women and girls."

The ranking member also knocked Trump's "unilateral announcements to withdraw troops, often a surprise to many of his own senior officials, which undercut U.S. leverage because those announcements were divorced from Taliban compliance with the deal; and his forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters back to the battlefield before a final Taliban offensive ultimately took Kabul."

"When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan," Meeks wrote. "Days before leaving office, the former President ordered a further reduction to 2,500. President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed combat with the Taliban."

"All witnesses who testified on this issue agreed that the United States would have faced renewed combat with the Taliban had we not continued the withdrawal," he added. "Rather than send more Americans to fight a war in Afghanistan, President Biden decided to end it."

Addressing the Abbey Gate bombing. Meeks said Republicans "knew for months that the attack was not preventable and that, even though a witness told our Committee he thought he had the ISIS-K bomber in his sights, he did not."

Republicans, Meeks said, made partisan attempts to garner headlines rather than acknowledge the full facts and substance of their investigation during the height of the election cycle. He also said Republicans attempted to tie Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democrats' presidential nominee, to the withdrawal even though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the committee's interview transcripts.

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"American taxpayers have funded this Committee’s oversight, and the American people deserve the truth," Meeks said. "We owe it to them to highlight the facts elicited in this investigation without undue spin and with respect for the seriousness of the subject and the witnesses who have voluntarily testified to us about it."

"It strikes me now as it did during that hearing that many of those critical of the withdrawal effort simply have a fundamental objection to President Biden fulfilling his pledge to be the last Commander-in-Chief to preside over the war in Afghanistan," he added. "They are masking their displeasure with criticisms but have failed to offer feasible alternatives. We must continue to wrestle with these matters not to rewrite the past or assign partisan blame, but to identify lessons that can help us better fight and end wars in the future."

50 days: Kamala Harris has yet to do formal press conference since emerging as Democratic nominee

Vice President Kamala Harris has gone 50 days as the presumptive, and now, official Democratic nominee for president without holding an official press conference.

Under pressure to sit down for a substantive interview after weeks of stonewalling, Harris finally ended her interview drought last month when she was joined by running mate Tim Walz for a pre-taped piece with CNN's Dana Bash last Thursday in Georgia that was a far cry from a traditional press conference.

"She should absolutely hold regular press conferences. Americans have the right and need to know what her policy stances are," conservative influencer Tim Young told Fox News Digital. 

"Anyone who wants to lead the free world should be able to handle questions from the press," Young continued. "If Kamala can't handle real questions from the press, she absolutely can't handle negotiations with foreign leaders."

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During the CNN interview, Harris defended some of her noted policy flip-flops on issues like fracking and immigration, saying her "values" hadn't changed. She was also pressed on whether she had regrets about defending President Biden's mental acuity after his debate, given he dropped out of the race less than a month later. She also said she wanted to "turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies."

Bash pointed out Harris had been vice president for three-and-a-half of those years, but Harris countered she meant moving on from this "era," seemingly referring to the political rise of Donald Trump that began in 2015.

Harris also sat for two taped radio interviews last week, one of which has yet to air.

As to when she'll actually do a formal press conference, that day may never come, at least while she's still a candidate.

"You will not see one press conference from her in the next 75 days until Election Day," Fox News contributor Joe Concha predicted earlier last month.

Conservative Radio Libre host Jorge Bonilla feels Harris should do a press conference but said it’s almost "irrelevant" because she continues to get a pass. 

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"She is highly unlikely to do a press conference because the media have enabled and encouraged her ‘plexiglass basement’ strategy, wherein she preserves the illusion of being out there while remaining wholly inaccessible to the press and therefore unaccountable," Bonilla told Fox News Digital.

NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck feels the vice president "obviously owes it to the American people to hold free-wheeling press conferences where reporters can, unlike what happened [Thursday] with CNN's Dana Bash, ask follow-up questions."

"For every softball from, say, ABC or NPR, you'll hope a liberal journalist will show some courage to do the right thing," Houck told Fox News Digital. 

"The interview itself had a positive atmosphere. From the get-go in the hype video-like opening by Bash, CNN put forward a perception that this was an event, not a grinding fact-finding mission," Houck continued. "She missed a litany of topics with Harris. Allowing death row inmates to vote, closing ICE, defunding the police, ending private insurance, girl's sports, the filibuster, Jussie Smollett, the Minneapolis bail fund, systemic racism… those were just a few of the areas she could have touched on."

Former President Trump has sought to highlight the contrast in media availability between the two, sitting for several lengthy interviews in recent weeks and also holding a pair of press conferences last month.

Harris received mixed reviews for her showing with Bash, where she took the majority of the questions but nevertheless had Walz there for support.

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"My fear is, because Bash wasn't like, say, CBS's Steve Kroft or NPR's Steve Inskeep salivating at the sight of Barack Obama, the liberal media will claim this and the upcoming ABC debate are sufficient interview time for the campaign," Houck said.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.Â