Trump slams Harris for 'disastrous' Afghan withdrawal

WASHINGTON:

Donald Trump on Monday tied Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan as he paid tribute to 13 troops killed in a suicide attack on the third anniversary of their deaths.

It was Trump who struck a deal with the Taliban for the US to withdraw from the country. But it was President Joe Biden who, after delaying it by a few months, finally implemented the retreat in 2021, one of the administration's lowest points.

Trump regularly slams Biden over it, but has pivoted to blaming Harris for White House policy decisions since she replaced the 81-year-old Democrat as his rival.

In Detroit to address the National Guard Association of the United States, the Republican ex-president, 78, argued that the "humiliation" of the withdrawal destroyed US credibility and was "caused by Kamala Harris (and) Joe Biden."

"Now, the voters are going to fire Kamala and Joe on November 5, we hope, and when I take office... I will get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on inauguration day," he said.

Ahead of Trump's speech, his campaign pointed to previous Harris statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the call to withdraw from Afghanistan.

"By her own admission, Kamala Harris was a key player in the disastrous withdrawal," it said in statement.

"She bragged about being the last person in the room for the fateful decision, was 'front and center' for the security briefings, and even laughed as a reporter asked her about the American citizens still trapped in Afghanistan."