Despite the fact that Biden has repeatedly stated he takes responsibility for conducting the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, even Thursday in that room in front of Doocy, the Fox shill saw fit to ask him if he bore "any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks." Biden channeled Jen Psaki's patience, and attempted to remind Doocy that yes, he does bear —and, indeed accepts*— responsibility for "fundamentally all that's happened of late."
Biden then attempted the impossible. No, not a completely bloodless Afghanistan withdrawal, but to extract a statement of truth and accuracy from Peter Doocy.
"You know, I wish you would one day say these things. You know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the commitment was made — and that was a year before — in return, he was given a commitment that the Taliban would continue to attack others, but would not attack any American forces. Remember that? I'm being serious," the president asked Doocy gently, though rather pointedly.
Doocy hemmed and hawed, and of course did not answer. Instead he tried to ask another question. Biden stuck with it, though, and said, "No, I'm asking you a question, because --"
Doocy interrupted*the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES*again, prompting Biden to say, "No, no, wait a minute. I'm asking you a question. Is that the accurate to the best of your knowledge?"
...
Do you think people have an issue with pulling out of Afghanistan, or just the way that things have happened?"
At this point, President Biden put his head down on his hands in disgust at this POS. For some reason, though, he answered the question.
"I think they have an issue that people are likely to get hurt, some as we've seen have gotten killed, and that it is messy. The reason why, whether my friend will acknowledge it or has reported it, the reason why there were no attacks on Americans as you said, or attacks in America from that date until I came into office, was because the commitment was made by President Trump, 'I will be out by May 1st. In the meantime you agree not to attack any Americans.' That was the deal. That's why no Americans were attacked," Pres. Biden reiterated.
Not satisfied with the amount of attention he'd received, Doocy asked him if he stood by his decision to withdraw. Biden answered with an unequivocal "Yes."
"Yes, I do....Imagine where we would be if I had indicated on May the 1st, I was not going to re-negotiate evacuation date. We were going to stay there. I would only have one alternative. Pour thousands more troops back into Afghanistan to fight a war that we had already won, relatively, by the reasons we went in the first place." In other words, Osama Bin Ladin was dead, and Al Qaeda was vastly weakened.
Then Biden got to the meat of why we need to continue our withdrawal, no matter how messy.
"I have never been of the view that we should be sacrificing American lives to try to establish a democratic government in Afghanistan, a country that has never once in its entire history been a united country, and it is made up of -- and I don't mean this as a derogatory, made up of different tribes who have never, ever, ever gotten along with one another....Our interest in going was to prevent Al-Qaeda from reemerging, first to get Bin Laden, wipe out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and prevent that from happening again."
Biden emphasized that we have much larger threats a lot closer to home that need his attention. Before he walked off, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, it was time to end a 20-year war."
