Today, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) released the following statement on President Biden’s decision not to move the August 31 deadline to evacuate all Americans and Afghans:
“This is a disastrous decision by President Biden that was cemented by his administration’s prior ill-conceived timeline agreement with the Taliban instead of the conditions on the ground. We deserve to know the full extent of the agreement with the Taliban, including the arbitrary and inflexible deadline that led us to the humiliating point of the Taliban dictating terms to the U.S. and setting a red line.
“To be clear, our servicemembers and military leaders on the ground are doing an extraordinary job in spite of the limited authority and direction provided to them by the Biden administration. We have seen their sense of duty, urgency, and compassion that we frankly are not consistently seeing from our civilian leaders.
“My office is assisting hundreds of people still stranded in Afghanistan and trying the best we can to cut red tape and get them evacuated safely. The situation is dire. My office is receiving heartbreaking alerts from SIVs that the Taliban is going door-to-door tracking them and their families down and they have no way to get to the airport.
“Time is running out and we cannot leave our fellow Americans and Afghan allies behind. We need our commander-in-chief to start acting like a leader and use any means necessary to get the job done.”