On Friday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that he doesn’t know whether then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should have been held accountable for the mishandling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, “but there should have been accountability for that.” But President Donald Trump negotiated a deal in his first term “that put Biden in a box.”
In response to a question on if he called for Austin to resign over the Afghanistan withdrawal “It was a mistake for Donald Trump to negotiate with the Taliban an agreement for winding down the Afghanistan war.”
Coons added, “It was a mistake to negotiate an end to that war that put Biden in a box. The execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan was badly handled, and the loss of those 13 Marines was a tragedy.”
Co-host Joe Kernen asked, “Should you have asked for Lloyd Austin’s resignation [for] that, or?”
Coons answered, “I don’t know whether Lloyd Austin’s the person who should have been held accountable for it, but there should have been accountability for that.”
Kernen then cut in to ask about former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley’s conversations with China.
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