Republican Party Removes Page Praising Trump's Taliban Deal

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In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the Republican Party has removed a page from its website that praised former President Donald Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban and his pledge to withdraw American troops from the embattled nation.

Below is a screenshot of the archived page, which was recorded by the Wayback Machine:

RNC

Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel was the first to notice the page’s removal, noting: “How quickly can the politics around Afghanistan change?”

How quickly can the politics around Afghanistan change? Here's a section on the RNC's website in June; click it now and you get a 404 error. (Rest of page was about Kosovo/Israel-Arab deals.) https://t.co/kDJo95QfiF pic.twitter.com/HkZok9mgJW

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) August 15, 2021

In recent days, Trump issued a statement remarking on what he called the “tragic mess” in Afghanistan and other issues, such as high inflation, that are directly affecting the United States.

Trump’s statement came amid news that the United States was readying a swifter evacuation as cities around Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

Trump’s administration had proposed leaving Afghanistan by January 15, 2021.

“By May, it is President Trump’s hope that they will all come home safely — and in their entirety,” then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien said at the time. “I want to reiterate that this policy is not new. This has been the president’s policy since he took office.”

Trump was largely supportive of an Afghanistan withdrawal. In April, he put himself at odds with other Republicans when he suggested that American troops should leave Afghanistan ahead of President Joe Biden’s proposed deadline of September 11.

“I made early withdraw possible by already pulling much of our billions of dollars and equipment out and, more importantly, reducing our military presence to less than 2,000 troops from the 16,000 level that was there,” he said.