Members of neither party in Michigan’s congressional delegation are yet weighing in on Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s (R-NJ-02) call for President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) to resign in response to the Taliban’s retaking of Afghanistan.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday night, Van Drew castigated the White House in stark terms.
“My God, it is one of the darkest, most embarrassing days we’ve had in our country and it’s a tremendous embarrassment for the Biden administration,” he told host Trey Gowdy. “You know, every day I wake up as a congressman … wonder, what’s going to be next?! But with this administration, it’s failure after failure after failure! Honest to God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I am. It literally is time for this president to resign. It is time for this vice president to resign. It is time for the Senate president and our speaker to resign.”
The Michigan Star called each U.S. congressperson and senator from Michigan asking for their view of Van Drew’s comments. None returned the request.
Van Drew, for most of his political career, has been a Democrat. He switched parties to become a Republican last year. In his Fox appearance yesterday, he criticized his former party for lurching too far leftward and said America is seeing the results of that lurch in Afghanistan.
“I mean, people that we trusted and worked with there are going to be killed, they’re going to be tortured, they’re going to be hurt, women are going to be raped, people are going to be beheaded. This was not an exit strategy that made any sense and in no way should have been a conditional exit strategy. In no way should this have been done … The president promised us that this wouldn’t happen, promised that it wouldn’t be like Vietnam, promised that there wouldn’t be people trying to literally be taken away off the top of our embassy and literally just his words a short time ago, and not one word made sense. None of it was right. We can’t keep doing this. We’ve got to be the America we’ve always known and always loved. This is not that America.”
When questioned by host and former Congressman Trey Gowdy, former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus and Van Drew agreed there was room for debate about whether the U.S. should maintain a military presence in Afghanistan.
“The one thing that confounds me is the lack of planning,” Ortagus clarified. “The lack of execution by this administration in withdrawing these forces.”
Members of Congress from Michigan have commented elsewhere.
In a statement, Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI-10) (pictured above) said, “The day of reckoning has come for Biden’s failed Afghanistan policies. Twenty years of combatting terror was brought down by one disastrous Democrat decision and has led to the resurgence of the Taliban in a matter of days that will only lead to more terror around the world.”
In an ABC 13 interview, Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI-03) described the present state of Afghanistan as an “intelligence and strategic policy failure of historic proportions.”
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Bradley Vasoli is a reporter at The Michigan Star and The Star News Network. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Rep. Lisa McClain” by Rep. Lisa McClain.
