Last Thursday, in his first remarks to the American people following the deadly terrorist attack at the Kabul airport that took the lives of 13 U.S. military personnel and almost 170 others, President Joe Biden began made this statement from the podium:
"Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here. The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O'Donnell from NBC."
That statement prompted Congressman Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) to tell Fox News that he wanted to know "who's behind the curtain" at the White House. While acknowledging that it's not uncommon for presidents to solicit advice from staff, "they don't take instructions," said Ellzey.
During that press conference on Thursday, Biden maintained that no mistakes were made in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan – and on Sunday, during a press conference on Hurricane Ida at FEMA headquarters, he refused to field any questions about Afghanistan, turned his back on the press, and walked away from the podium.
In an interview with AFN, Gary Bauer says the president is "still trying to protect his back end politically while he pursues this just terrible, ill-conceived and now deadly policy."
While campaigning for the Oval Office in 2020, Biden touted his decades of foreign policy experience as a U.S. senator and Barack Obama's vice president. Yet he had been criticized by a former defense secretary six years earlier for being wrong about "nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
Bauer, the chairman of Campaign for Working Families, suggests that trend hasn't changed, questioning President Biden's decisions to pull American troops out of Afghanistan and give the Taliban a list of Americans and Afghan allies still in the country.
"Is it possible to be this stupid? I don't think you can be this stupid," he exclaims. "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day – [but] this guy is never right when it comes to protecting the lives of the American people, which is the number-one priority of any president of the United States."
But Bauer fears things could wax even worse.
"If America goes down, the world will sink into another dark age," he warns. "And since nothing can get Biden out of the White House right now, I would urge Americans [regardless of party] to pray to God that he would spare this country and those men of an even worse disaster that could happen."
Holding Biden accountable
Meanwhile, a Gold Star father delivered a message for President Biden during a recent appearance on Fox News.
"Mr. President, I will continue to pray for you," said Craig Gross, the chaplain for Gold Star fathers for the state of Florida. "I will continue to pray for your administration that somehow you will find the wisdom from God to get us out of this horrific mess that you, Mr. President, have gotten us into."
Gross also urged the president to take responsibility for his decisions.
"Please quit blaming this on the former president of the United States of America," he added. "You are culpable – you alone. The buck stops at your desk. And I would wish that you would quit blaming this on other people.
"Take the responsibility, quit passing the buck, and get on with your job and do what we hired you to do. We do not work for you, Mr. President – you work for us."
