Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Sunday that Afghans who fought alongside Americans “against the Taliban” should get “an unusual level of support and treatment.”
“As you know, with that chaotic exit, there were tens of thousands of Afghans scattered, some of them still separated from their families,” CBS News’s Margaret Brennan said on “Face the Nation,” noting the late 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal by the U.S.
“Many of them worked for the U.S. government. Should Mr. Trump extend the legal process of this program and bring those Afghans here, and would you ask Congress to raise the current cap they have on the number of them coming?” she added.
“I think the Afghan refugees who actively fought on the side of Americans, saved American lives, tried to help win against the Taliban — I think they deserve an unusual level of support and treatment,” Gingrich replied.
On Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Biden made the correct strategic call regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
“The strategic call President Biden made, looking back three years, history has judged well and will continue to judge well,” Sullivan said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“From the point of view that, if we were still in Afghanistan today, Americans would be fighting and dying; Russia would have more leverage over us; we would be less able to respond to the major strategic challenges we face,” he added.
A recent report from GOP members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee analyzing the withdrawal criticized President Biden for a rushed task that was undergone despite counsel from allies and advisers and resulted in unnecessary deaths.
“I worked all during the period of President Biden’s insanely disastrous withdrawal. I tried to work with various people and did podcasts with people who were trying to get folks out of Afghanistan who should legitimately have been helped by the U.S. government,” Gingrich said in his “Face the Nation” appearance.
The Hill has reached out to President-elect Trump’s transition team and the White House for comment.
