Former Department of Justice spokesman Anthony Coley said on NBC News Monday that former President Joe Biden should have stepped aside following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Biden administration refused to take responsibility for the chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal that led to the deaths of several U.S. troops, and no officials involved have been dismissed or resigned over the operation. During an appearance on “Meet the Press Now,” Coley said that while age and stamina became recurring concerns during the 2024 campaign, the real damage to Biden’s political standing began years earlier. (RELATED: Trump Declares War On Deep State Leakers)
“I think what Hunter Biden didn’t say is that people started losing confidence in Joe Biden, whom I love, I worked for in his administration, right after the Afghanistan debacle. And remember, that was August 2021. His polling never recovered after Afghanistan,” Coley said.
Coley said the former president should have stepped aside after the 2022 midterms, arguing that voters initially backed him out of confidence and competence.
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“And people voted for Biden, right, in part, because of competence. And so the midterms, I think, gave them that year, gave the Biden team a little more confidence than they should have had. But that was the moment where he really should have bowed out, and we should’ve had a robust primary,” Coley said.
Coley said age and travel fatigue weren’t the reasons Biden lost in 2024. Instead, voters lost confidence in his ability to go the distance, regardless of his message or agenda.
“A lot of things can be true here. So, he was 81 years old, and he did take two trips back and forth from Europe. Given that, that’s not why he lost the race, though. You can have the best message in the world, you can have the best policy agenda in the world, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have the trust — the messenger, somebody that voters think can go the distance, somebody who has stamina — then you’re gonna lose. And that’s what happened at the presidential level in 2024,” Coley said.
In a profanity-laced tirade lasting just two minutes, Hunter Biden lashed out at several Democratic figures he believes helped force his father out of the race. Among his targets were George Clooney, who led early calls for Biden to step aside, and CNN’s Jake Tapper, who recently published a book detailing alleged cover-ups inside the Biden White House.
A Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General report released in June found that 55 Afghan evacuees on the terror watchlist reached the U.S. during the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The FBI admitted that standard screening procedures were skipped as part of the rushed evacuation effort.
The report concluded that the rushed Afghanistan withdrawal, which left 13 U.S. service members dead, caused the government to use inadequate vetting procedures for Afghan evacuees. Biden ordered the full military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and later admitted he was caught off guard by how fast the Afghan government collapsed, triggering a chaotic evacuation of thousands.
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