Former President Donald Trump sought to remind voters on Monday what Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden failed to do in Afghanistan.
Trump was addressing the third anniversary of the ISIS-K suicide attack in Afghanistan, which killed 13 U.S. service members.
“As vice president, Kamala bragged that she was the last person in the room, that she was the tough one, that she was the last person in the room during that disastrous decision to withdraw from Afghanistan,” Trump said at a rally on Monday.
During the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Harris curtailed her public schedule for several days, deciding not to appear with Biden when he spoke about the crisis on August 18.
At the time, White House officials told reporters to expect Harris to stand next to Biden, but at the last minute she decided against it and decided to watch the speech from a side room.
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives to deliver a speech on Afghanistan in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, August 16, 2021
The only images of Harris during the crisis were images and statements carefully distributed on social media through a pre-approved process.
It was an eerie response from the vice president who boasted in April of that year that she was the “last person in the room” when President Biden decided to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan.
“This is a president with an extraordinary amount of courage,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash, repeat that she agreed with Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from the country.
It was later revealed that Harris spent three days in August filming a YouTube video about space with child actors as the Taliban rapidly seized power in Afghanistan.
Harris appeared again on August 20, standing masked next to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan as President Joe Biden delivered another speech on Afghanistan.
US President Joe Biden (C), with (L-R) Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,
President Joe Biden speaks about evacuating American citizens and their families
On August 22, she left Washington DC for a trip to Singapore, finally breaking her silence on the issue.
When reporters asked her questions on the platform before she left, Harris laughed, then claimed the board was taking the issue seriously.
“We couldn’t have had a higher priority at this time,” she said, even as she left the country to focus on Singapore.
Harris also defended Biden’s handling of the disaster during a press conference on August 23, focusing on his public response to the images of the chaos that unfolded.
Harris dodged a question about her support for Biden’s plan to withdraw from the country, choosing instead to focus on the president’s immediate response.
This image from a video released by the Department of Defense shows U.S. Marines at Abbey Gate before a suicide bomber strikes outside Hamid Karzai International Airport
“I think the president showed a lot of emotion in expressing his sadness about some of the images that we saw,” she said.
On August 26, a suicide bomb was detonated at Kabul airport, killing 13 American servicemen.
Harris responded with a statement, but did not address the attack.
During her trip home, she organized an event for American military personnel in Hawaii, but she kept it a secret from the press.
She then ignored reporters’ shouted questions when she returned to Washington, D.C.
Harris marked the third anniversary of the Kabul airport bombing in a statement released Monday morning.
“On this solemn day, let us come together as one nation to honor those who three years ago made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the United States and our cherished freedoms,” the statement said. “In their memory, let us rededicate ourselves to the cause for which they gave their lives: protecting and defending the greatest democracy on Earth, the United States of America.”