In what’s likely his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Biden said on Tuesday that he thinks “every day” about the 13 Americans who died in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport — as Secretary of State Antony Blinken faces a possible House panel contempt vote later in the day.
“Thirteen brave Americans lost their lives, along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bomb. I think [of] those lost lives — I think [of] them every day,” said Biden, 81, stumbling over his script.
Biden called his August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan “a hard decision, but the right decision” during the lengthy speech, which touched on major conflicts across the world.
The withdrawal has become an election-year issue as Republicans accuse the Biden administration of stonewalling inquiries into how Islamic State terrorists were able to detonate such a large bomb at the gate to the airport being mobbed by throngs of desperate Afghans seeking to flee the Taliban.
The House Homeland Security Committee is considering a vote later Tuesday to hold Blinken in contempt for not complying with a subpoena for his testimony to instead attend UN events in New York.
Biden also used his speech to call on the assembled tyrants to reconsider their grip on power — noting how he was forced by fellow Democrats to relinquish his party’s presidential nomination on July 21 over concern about his mental acuity.