Vice President Kamala Harris defended her administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan while former President Donald Trump accused current military strategy of leading the country towards “World War III” in Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Philadelphia.
In a 90-minute showdown, which mostly focused on economic and social issues, the two front-runners for president spent several minutes sparring over defense policy issues, including American military support for Ukraine and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The latter topic has been a mainstay of Trump’s Republican presidential campaign in recent weeks. During the debate, he falsely claimed that President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country in 2021 left behind $85 billion “of brand new beautiful military equipment” — the U.S. military spent about $83 billion total on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund from 2001 to 2021 — and asserted that he would have handled the departure better than Biden.
“We would have been out faster than them, but we wouldn’t have lost the soldiers,” he said, referring to the 13 U.S. troops killed in a terrorist attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the final days of the American presence in Afghanistan. “They blew it.”
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Harris, the Democratic nominee for commander in chief, said despite the tumult of the final weeks of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, she agreed with Biden’s decision to withdraw from the country.
“Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did,” she said. “And as a result, America’s taxpayers are not paying the $300 million a day we were paying for that endless war.”
She also blamed Trump for the chaos surrounding the U.S. military’s exit, saying he negotiated “one of the weakest deals you can imagine” with Taliban leaders before leaving office, which left the Afghan government marginalized and weak.
Trump countered by claiming that Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan inspired Russian officials to escalate their war in Ukraine, “because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are.”
When asked directly if he wants Ukraine to win its war against Russia, Trump responded, “I want the war to stop. … I think it’s in the U.S.’ best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.”
Harris called that a sign of weakness in the face of foreign threats.
“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” she said. “And understand what that would mean. Putin’s agenda is not just about Ukraine. European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that [he is] no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO.”
Trump said that if he returns to the White House, he will end the fighting in Ukraine “before even becoming president,” and accused Biden and Harris of leading America towards greater danger through their support of the Ukrainian military.
“We’re going to end up in a third World War,” he said. “And it will be a war like no other because of nuclear weapons, the power of weaponry.”
Harris countered by saying the former president is “consistently weak and wrong on national security.” On several occasions, she also claimed to have spoken to U.S. military leaders who called Trump “a disgrace,” though she did not offer specific names.
Veterans and veterans issues were not mentioned during the debate, the only face-to-face meeting between the two major party nominees before the November election.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
