‘No way’ U.S. meets Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan, Marco Rubio says

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Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio says the U.S. won’t be able to withdraw all Americans and allies from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, as President Joe Biden reiterated Tuesday he was sticking to that deadline.

“There is no way that the U.S. leaves by Aug. 31 and there are not hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans and allies left behind,” Rubio said Wednesday. “There’s just no way to do it.”

Rubio made those comments during a speech Wednesday at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches event in West Palm Beach.

He pointed to bipartisan criticism of the withdrawal plan. That criticism has been shared by Americans in recent polling even as majorities still agree the U.S. should have pulled out of the country.

“I’m a Republican, the President is a Democrat. But there are Democrats that are out there saying exactly what I’m about to tell you, that this is not just a blemish. This is going to go down in history as one of the most horrifying debacles in American foreign policy history,” Rubio argued.

“What the posture should have been from the beginning and most recently is the following: We have a list of people and equipment that we are going to take with us. And once all of that is out, we’ll leave. And the Taliban has two choices: They can get out of the way so we can do it quicker and efficiently, or they can get in the way and die. And I hate to be that blunt, but that really is the only way to have confronted this.”

Rubio, who is up for reelection next year, avoided commenting on whether the U.S. should have left this year in the first place.

“That decision was made by President (Donald) Trump,” Rubio said. “I think it’s supported by a large number of the American people. It was a bipartisan position. And at the end of the day, whether we were there another three years, two years, one year or six, there had to come a moment where that ended.”

Instead, he constrained his criticism Wednesday to how the withdrawal was conducted, arguing the timelines set by Trump and Biden didn’t match the events on the ground.

“As long as they were being threatened from the air, there’s no way the Taliban could put 2,000 people together in one place. But the minute they understood that the air support was no longer available, they were now able to amass fighters,” Rubio said.

“The administration’s assumption was we have all this time to withdraw as long as things stay the same. The problem is everyone knew things wouldn’t stay the same because we were going to stop with the airstrikes and cut them back. And as we did, the Taliban would make substantial gains.”

Wednesday’s meeting was the first in-person keynote speaker event hosted by the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches since last year. Those meetings had gone virtual in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rubio, who has been critical of mask and vaccine mandates in the past, did discuss the pandemic Wednesday and reiterated the need to get vaccinated.

“We do have enough evidence to know that the vaccines are very effective at keeping people from dying and out of hospitals. Not 100%. Nothing in life is 100% — not airbags, not seatbelts, not taking an aspirin a day. None of these things are 100% and neither is a vaccine, but it is an advancement,” Rubio said.

He again reiterated his opposition to vaccine mandates, arguing individuals would make the “right decisions” if given accurate information.

“I honestly believe that if you give grown-ups and adults information, they’ll make the right decisions for themselves and for their families. And that really is our job in government for the most part, is to provide people resources and information,” Rubio said.

He also argued further shutdowns should be off the table. “

“We’re going to be living with this for some time, but we have to live. We can’t shut down the country again. We can’t sustain it, not economically, not socially, not culturally, not politically. It isn’t going to happen,” he said.

Several Democrats are mounting challenges to Rubio in next year’s General Election. Recent polling has shown a tight race between Rubio and U.S. Rep. Val Demings, one of the leading Democratic contenders.

While Rubio touched on events of the day such as Afghanistan and COVID-19, he also devoted a significant chunk of his speech to the ongoing economic battle with China.

Rubio, who has spoken strongly against socialism, had some critiques of the American capitalist system as well Wednesday. He argued that while utilizing cheaper labor in China may make economic sense, it may not be in America’s best interest.

Rubio pointed to multiple areas where China’s influence could be felt.

“Today, Hollywood will not produce a movie with a Chinese bad guy,” Rubio argued. “You can’t produce a movie and have it distributed by a major studio that says anything the Chinese government doesn’t like because all of those studios want that movie to be shown in China and they know it won’t be unless it’s censored.”

He argued reliance on China was even strangling Americans’ willingness to speak out on reported wrongs by the Chinese government.

“All the athletes, all the celebrities, all the people that jump and take on all these great causes never say a word, never say a word about China. You know why? Because they’ve got a shoe deal, they have some other endorsement deal or, in the case of the NBA, has a distribution deal on television that’s worth billions of dollars.”

Ultimately, Rubio said, U.S. policy toward China will have an outsized, longterm impact on future generations. He pushed policymakers to reassess U.S. trade relations with China and push to invest in American manufacturing going forward.

“On the economic front, on the commercial front, on the industrial front, on the technological front, we face a massive transition in our economy combined with the first near-pure adversary since the end of the Cold War. And our politics are still struggling to adjust to it,” Rubio said.

“These are the big issues that people will talk about 50 years from now. I’m not saying they won’t mention COVID existed, they will. I’m not saying that Russia poses zero threat, they do. I’m not saying that what happens in Afghanistan is not incredibly important, it is. But I’m telling you that long-term and big picture, our children and our grandchildren will live in a world that will be largely defined by what happened to the relationship between the U.S. and China.”