Tensions rose between CNN host Poppy Harlow and former Vice President Mike Pence as she attempted to defend President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan during a Monday segment of “CNN This Morning.”
Pence, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, criticized the Biden administration for urging Israel to delay its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip until all of the more than 200 hostages are released. The former vice president called on the U.S. to allow Israel to take any step they feel is necessary to destroy and defeat Hamas, the terrorist group that launched the deadliest attack on Israel since the 1970s.
Harlow cited retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McCrystal’s previous comments to CNN arguing that the U.S. should have waited a year after the September 11, 2001, attacks before attacking Al-Qaeda in order to better prepare the U.S. for war in the Middle East. Pence responded by calling McCrystal’s assessment “incomprehensible” and took a shot at Biden’s “disastrous withdrawal” from Afghanistan in Aug. 2021.
“For twenty years, up until Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was American forces there, American forces around the world, that kept us safe from another major terrorist event on our soil. So no, I think we’ve gotta stand strong, I think we’ve gotta make it clear that there will be a price to be paid.” Pence said.
“I go back to that forty-years-ago lesson, Poppy. It was forty years ago today, 241 marines,” he continued, referring to the 1983 bombing of a barracks housing U.S. forces in Lebanon. “When we signaled American retreat, it was Osama Bin Laden himself who would write that emboldened him to set into motion the efforts that led to 9/11. We’ve got to meet this moment with American strength, and we’ve gotta stand without qualification by Israel as they do what needs to be done to hunt down and destroy Hamas.”
“I want to move onto the hostages being held, but before I do, President Biden [was]carrying an agreement to withdraw those troops from Afghanistan that was made during the Trump-Pence term presidency,” Harlow said. “Look, you said yesterday, Mr. Vice President, that you think that the U.S. should —”
“Well, but it wasn’t carried out the way we were gonna carry it out, Poppy,” Pence interrupted. (RELATED: ‘With Overwhelming Force’: 2024 Presidential Candidates Respond To Attack On Israel)
“I want time to ask you about the hostages because you care a lot about this, Mr. Vice President,” Harlow continued.
“Well he changed the deal and it turned into a disastrous withdrawal, but we can talk about that again in the future,” Pence said.
A State Department after-action review team found fault with both the Biden and Trump administrations in the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport as the last American troops departed the country, and the Taliban quickly reclaimed Afghanistan after 21 years.