‘You Said That!’ CBS’s Brennan Presses Dem Rep On Whether Kamala Harris Partly To Blame For ‘Moral Failure’ of Afghanistan Withdrawal

CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan confronted Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) on whether Kamala Harris should be blamed for the Afghanistan withdrawal.

On the latest edition of Face The Nation from CBS News on Sunday, Brennan said that in Ryan’s call for Joe Biden to step aside, he called the withdrawal from Afghanistan “a strategic and a moral failure.”

“The vice president says she was that last person in the room on that decision,” Brennan added. “Is that failure also hers?”

Rather than name Harris as among those to blame for that failure, Ryan replied, “We’ve got to stop assigning partisan blame on fundamental things like our national security.”

Brennan quickly interjected, “you said that” as a response to calling such criticism partisan, considering he and the administration are in the same party.

The conversation continued, with Brennan pressing Ryan on whether Harris should mention the names of those killed in the ISIS attack on Abbey Gate, and Ryan again choosing not to commit to a response.

BRENNAN: I want to ask you about Afghanistan, because in your – in your call for Joe Biden to step aside, you also pointed to that as a Biden-Harris problem. In fact, you said it was a strategic and a moral failure, that withdraw. The vice president says she was that last person in the room on that decision. Is that failure also hers?

RYAN: We’ve got to stop assigning partisan blame on fundamental things like our national security.

BRENNAN: You said that.

RYAN: I – I said it as an American. I said it as someone who served in combat, who had friends that served in Afghanistan. If we can’t make mistakes and – and wrestle with that, with a little bit of space to do better in the future, how do we expect to continue on the next 250 years as this great country that we are? So, we have to be – and I’ve called on presidents of both parties when I disagree with them, on behalf of my constituents, on behalf of what I think is right for the country. So, we have to be able to do that.

BRENNAN: I bring that up because we are coming up on the three- year anniversary of that withdraw and that fatal attack at Abbey Gate where 13 service people lost their lives in the ISIS-k suicide bombing. The family members of some of those service people took the stage at the RNC and said that President Biden hasn’t spoken their names and how hurtful that was to them. Do you think the vice president should speak to that now this week?

RYAN: Well, I’ll let the vice president make her decisions about things like that. What I do think we need to recognize is, you want to talk about how we’re speaking to veterans and military families. Just ten days ago Donald Trump got up and said, Medal of Honor recipients, the most revered hero’s in our country’s history, there’s only 62 living Medal of Honor recipients in the United States, he directly denigrated and insulted them, on top of years of insulting gold star families, calling our troops suckers and losers. That’s something I spoke about at the convention.

And I believe we’re in a place where the Democratic Party is a party of patriots. Folks voting for Kamala Harris can feel that they are doing – and I certainly feel – their patriotic duty to bring our country together, stop insulting veterans and military families that have made the ultimate sacrifice. And Kamala Harris has done that and – and will continue to do that.

BRENNAN: But it would mean something to those in your district if that loss was acknowledged this week?

RYAN: Well, I think that it would mean a lot to the family members, of course, to acknowledge their – their loss.

BRENNAN: Right.

RYAN: And, you know, we’ve lost far too many veterans, not just in active duty combat –

BRENNAN: Yes.

RYAN: But we’ve talked about this before, coming home. We’ve now lost more Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to suicide than we lost in active duty.

BRENNAN: Yes.

RYAN: So, we need to properly fund the VA. Another thing that Donald Trump failed to do.

BRENNAN: Yes.

RYAN: And so it’s a – these are important, stark choices ahead.

Watch the clip above via CBS News.

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