WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is continuing to defend the decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by August 31.
As that date rapidly approaches, the evacuation of Americans and vulnerable Afghan citizens is intensifying before it stops completely.
As of Wednesday morning, 82,000-plus people have been evacuated from Kabul since August 14.
While President Biden remains confident in what is going on in Kabul, the American people are becoming more skeptical.
For the first time in his presidency, more Americans disapprove of the President than approve of him. That’s according to Real Clear Politics polling average,which calculates all the polling that is being conducted on the president, not just one individual poll.
It’s not just polling expressing skepticism - members of Congress are also skeptical, which is why efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for what’s happened in Afghanistan will begin soon.
Following a House Intelligence Committee briefing earlier this week, Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the following: "We view this as the beginning of vigorous oversight into what went wrong."
Meanwhile, Chairman Gregory Meeks, another Biden ally who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has already said he wants Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinkin to testify soon in a public hearing.
“It is imperative that the administration provide the American people and Congress transparency about its Afghanistan strategy,” he wrote in a letter.
Some Republicans are vowing a lengthy investigation if they take back control of the House next year, especially since billions of American taxpayer dollars were spent training Afghan troops to fight the Taliban.
Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney of New York tweeted, “Is it too soon for us to start discussing an Afghanistan Select Committee.”
The reality is while President Biden will not be testifying under oath because of laws that exist that allow him to decline, his top advisers will be soon. Congressional scrutiny of President Biden’s orders in Afghanistan could begin in the fall and potentially last years.
