President Biden was so mentally fatigued that he skipped out on a phone call from the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee ahead of the US’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a report.
Biden, the oldest president in US history, was incredibly hard to reach — even for lawmakers in his own party — as his aides attempted to keep Biden’s evident mental and physical decline under tight wraps, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal revealed.
That inaccessibility proved to be immensely consequential for one of the administration’s biggest snafus that would mar the remainder of Biden’s presidency.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, had tried to contact the president in 2021 to share his concerns about the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Smith said he was worried about the administration’s optimistic comments about pulling out from Afghanistan — which, after working extensively on the issue, the congressman believed would be significantly more difficult than White House officials were letting on and wanted to share his findings.
“I was begging them to set expectations low,” Smith told the Journal — but he couldn’t get the commander-in-chief on the phone.
Thirteen US service members and more than 170 Afghans were killed in the chaotic evacuation in August 2021, which ended the longest conflict in US history and left the Taliban victorious and in charge.
The US also abandoned some $7 billion in weapons and other military equipment.
In the aftermath, Smith commented to the Washington Post that Biden’s administration lacked a “clear-eyed view” of the toppled US-backed government’s durability.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, enraged over Smith’s remarks, called the congressman to chew his ear— but Smith ultimately ended up giving it back to Blinken, according to the Wall Street Journal. Blinken would later accept responsibility for the Afghanistan catastrophe.
Soon afterward, Smith also received an apologetic call from Biden — the only call Biden made to Smith in his four years in the White House.
“The Biden White House was more insulated than most,” Smith said. “I spoke with Barack Obama on a number of occasions when he was president and I wasn’t even chairman of the committee.”
Biden would alter or cancel scheduled meetings depending on whether he appeared up to the task beginning almost as soon as he was in office, the Journal reported.
A national security official told an aide in the spring of 2021 that the president “has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow.”
Meetings were often scheduled for later in the day — a fact first revealed after Biden’s awful debate performance against former President Donald Trump, when staff admitted the then-Democratic nominee had difficulty functioning outside a six-hour window that closed around 4 p.m. daily.
The Afghanistan blunder would be a glaring stain on Biden’s record for the remainder of his tenure and was a major talking point for his now-successor, President-elect Trump, on the campaign trail.
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