because it s the right one, it s the right decision for our people. the right one for our brave service members who risk their lives serving our nation. and it s the right one for america. thank you. may god protect our troops, our diplomats, and all brave americans serving in harm s way. that was a consequential speech by an american president at a consequential time to, quote, toward the end, i am the president of the united states. the buck stops with me. earlier joe biden saying, i stand squarely behind my decision. consequential because of the pictures, imagery and stories the american people are seeing come out of afghanistan after a two-decade-long engagement, $2 trillion in expenditures.
in afghanistan. i suppose that that might work for some people. yeah. i actually think he succeeded in that goal today, which is to reframe these horrific images of a clearly failed plan in departure here to try and put it, as you called it earlier, jake, into that safer political terrain of this larger notion of the decision to withdraw forces from afghanistan. that s not really what these last 72 hours was about, though. i mean, yes, he can do his best as he did today to reframe for the american people what they re seeing. that s a casualty of this ultimate decision that he knows a majority of americans support him on, which is no longer having a military presence in afghanistan. he even said he used words like it s going to be hard and messy and far from perfect. he said he s deeply saddened by the facts we are facing right now. but, again, it all came back in
criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the united states, yet another one, a fifth one. because it s the right one, it s the right decision for our people. the right one for our brave servicemembers who risked their lives serving our nation. ands it the right one for america. thank you. may god protect our troops, our diplomats, and all brave americans serving in harm s way. you ve been listening to president biden speaking at the white house forced to talk about the worsening crisis in afghanistan, forced to speak to the nation after the calamity of the taliban takeover of afghanistan. the president stated he stands squarely behind the decision he made to withdraw all u.s. forces from afghanistan even though he has in fact been forced to send roughly 6,000 back in. the president saying, in fact,
that, if anything, the events of the last few days, this foreign policy and humanitarian disaster proves to him that he made the right decision, given the fleeing of afghan politicians from the country and the collapse of the afghan military. the president said that the buck stopped with him, but, in fact, the speech was full of finger-pointing and blame, especially for the afghans even saying that while the u.s. would be working to rescue those americans and u.s. allies who needed to be saved, he claimed part of the reason why the u.s. did not save sooner afghan allies, the translators and others who worked with the u.s. military, who fear being slaughtered by the taliban, they didn t act sooner because some afghans, he claimed, did not want to leave earlier because they were hopeful about a new afghan government. mr. biden also said that the afghan government discouraged the u.s. from ordering a mass exodus for fear of triggering a crisis of confidence, the president said. mr. biden
it seemed a tripling down on his decision as president to withdraw the united states, the military forces from afghanistan. but you can t have both, we planned for every contingency, but the truth is it unfolded more quickly than anticipated. those two things don t actually go together. and it s leaving that unanswered i think leaves this opportunity for legitimate criticism that i think the president is going to probably need to continue or at least get back to and try another take at getting those answers to why this didn t go as planned. and, jeff zeleny, to the point david chalian was just making, president biden didn t take any questions today. but he s going to face tough questions from republicans and democrats in congress. i mean, this was a foreign policy disaster, watching what we have watched unfold over the last few days. it is possible, i suppose, that if no americans suffer an ill