House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused President Joe Biden of abandoning Americans in Kabul to be hostages and arming the Taliban with more Blackhawk helicopters than Australia owns in a Sunday interview.
He shared a clip of his Fox interview on Twitter the next day and warned abandoning military equipment to the insurgent group makes the United States 'less safe now than before 9/11.'
'President Biden handed over billions of dollars in American military weaponry to the Taliban. They now have more Blackhawk helicopters than Australia, and they have released thousands of ISIS terrorists from prison,' McCarthy wrote Monday morning.
'They have our drones and others,' the Republican lawmaker said on television Sunday. 'We need to focus on protecting America, and that's something that this administration is not doing, but putting more Americans that could be held hostage stuck in Afghanistan.'
Roughly 250 Americans are still trying to get out of Afghanistan ahead of Biden's August 31 deadline for a full withdrawal, the State Department said Sunday.
McCarthy slammed the Biden administration in an interview Sunday that he then shared with more withering criticism on Monday
Some of the 250 Americans may be traveling to Hamid Karzai International Airport or could already be there, the State Department said in a statement.
Around 5,500 US citizens have been evacuated from Kabul since August 14 when the Taliban took the Afghan capital.
If evacuations end Tuesday at midnight, there are now less than 48 hours left for those citizens and numerous vulnerable Afghans to get out.
McCarthy accused the State Department of 'allowing Taliban to dictate our foreign policy.'
'We're watching Americans being left behind, but administration knowingly making that decision - there is no excuse why this deadline has not been extended,' he said.
The California Republican called Biden's deadline a photo opportunity with devastating consequences.
'It will lead to a fatal national security issue on the battlefield, and that is what transpired here based upon what Joe Biden as president has done,' he said.
McCarthy called Biden's deadline a political photo opportunity and warned it would lead 'to a fatal national security issue'
Some of the final US flights left Kabul on Monday despite the airport coming under fire from five ISIS rockets and as the threat of another attack grows stronger by the minute.
Five rockets were launched at the airport in Kabul Monday morning from a sedan parked nearby. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they used Katyusha rockets against the US troops still on the ground.
No one is believed to have been killed in the attack; the US Army's C-RAM missile defense system took out just one of the five rockets - a 20 percent success rate. Three missed the airfield and one landed inside but Pentagon officials said it had 'no effect' on the evacuation flights.
The weapon defense system features a radar-controlled, rapid fire 20mm gun positioned atop a swiveling base on top of a trailer. It can be fired remotely and fires 4,500 rounds per minute.
An US Air Force aircraft takes off from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30
A C-17 Globemaster takes off as Taliban fighters secure the outer perimeter, alongside the American controlled side of of the airport
Between Sunday and Monday, 1,200 people were flown out on 26 US military flights and two coalition flights.
Late last week McCarthy hinted at the possibility of writing up articles of impeachment against Biden after an explosion at the airport's Abbey Gate checkpoint killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 US service members.
Asked about it again on Sunday, he replied: 'My moment at this time - at this point, is getting every American out. When we get beyond that point, we're going to collect all the data.'
'We have a constitutional responsibility to hold people accountable, and we are going to take it wherever the facts bring that forward. If that's the case, we'll move forward.'
McCarthy also isn't the first person to raise concern about the massive war chest the US military would leave behind.
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.'
The rockets targeted the airport on Monday morning s the final US flights took off from Kabul. Other Western nations have now left the region because it is too dangerous to stay
Current and former officials say that while they are concerned about the Taliban having access to the helicopters, the aircraft require frequent maintenance and many are complicated to fly without extensive training.
"Ironically, the fact that our equipment breaks down so often is a life-saver here," a third official said.
Retired U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversaw U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019, said most of the high-end hardware captured by the Taliban, including the aircraft, was not equipped with sensitive U.S. technology.
"In some cases, some of these will be more like trophies," Votel said.
But there is a more immediate concern about some of the easier- to-use weapons and equipment, such as night-vision goggles.
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
"The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer," one congressional aide told Reuters.
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