Former President Donald Trump would have kept at least a couple thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan despite his 2020 peace agreement with the Taliban, according to former Vice President Mike Pence.
In February 2020, the Trump Administration reached a deal (pdf) with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 14 months, so long as the Taliban kept its commitment not to attack the United States or its allies.
In an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, host Margaret Brennan noted a new assessment (pdf) by the U.S. State Department under President Joe Biden’s administration, which assigned blame to both Biden and Trump for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Citing the State Department report, Brennan asked Pence to assess whether the Trump administration should accept some of the blame. Pence suggested the Trump administration would have kept troops in the country and altered course if they were still in charge during the final months of the Afghanistan withdrawal….