John Bolton to Newsmax: Afghanistan Withdrawal 'Catastrophic'

Former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Newsmax on Thursday that the Trump administration worked out the details of a deal to withdraw from Afghanistan that the Biden administration "implemented poorly."

"It was the Trump administration that negotiated this deal with Afghanistan," Bolton said on "Prime News," three years after the U.S. exit from Afghanistan. "They excluded the legitimate Afghan government, cut a deal with the Taliban, when there was no reason whatsoever to expect the Taliban would honor any of their commitments.

"Then, the election intervened. Biden picked up the plan and implemented it, implemented it poorly. But implemented it," he said.

Bolton said the decision was "catastrophic," and one we are now seeing the consequences of.

"Foreign terrorist fighters returned to Afghanistan and have begun launching terrorist attacks in Europe, in the Middle East, they attempted an attack against three Taylor Swift concerts this past weekend," he said.

Bolton told Newsmax the first thing the U.S. needs to do is isolate the Taliban.

"We should not be supplying any American assistance directly or indirectly, at least theoretically. We're not doing it. We're not giving the Taliban government resources.

"But it appears from a lot of reports that we're still funding agencies that are aiding the Taliban directly, so that our share of a typical U.N. assessed budget is 22%. I think this is really something Congress needs to look into further," he said.

Bolton said the Taliban are now hosting cells like ISIS-K and al-Qaida that can threaten the country and become a "refuge for terrorists."

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