Republican Brady Duke, a Christian minister and former Navy SEAL sniper, who is running in Florida’s seventh congressional district, said Breitbart News Saturday that President Joe Biden “has been wrong on every major foreign policy and national security issue for nearly four decades,” including Afghanistan.
As the country nears the one-year anniversary of the withdrawal of United States funds from Afghanistan, days after a terrorist attack killed 13 service members and injured several others, Duke said that “Biden was wrong on every important foreign policy and national security issue for nearly four decades.”
“We’ve seen this just glaringly in the ‘Afghan retreat,'” Duke said. “I have a thing about calling it ‘Afghan withdrawal,’ because, simply, if you can’t, if you stand on the battlefield with your enemy and turn your back and run, retreat, ‘I’m not retreating.’
When discussing the lives lost over the years and seeing the withdrawal happen, he acknowledged that it is “devastating” for the United States but also “for our relationship with our allies. And the relationship we created with the people of Afghanistan. And this is devastating for veterans. You know, with the veterans that I talk to, this has made us sick to our stomachs. It has left many almost speechless.”
“You talk to anybody here in the city — even without military experience — and they can tell you some key steps that should have been taken that weren’t taken by this administration and under this leadership,” Duke added. “It’s really devastating to see the lives that were lost there to try to do the right thing, to stand up against terrorism and ensure that we could remain free. But now this is, you know, another hotbed for terrorists… We have to hold this government accountable.”
After the killing of former al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan, where a US airstrike eliminated him last weekend, Duke said it was a “victory” but overall, “it’s largely a loss for the people of Afghanistan. . And it’s still a loss, I think, for the national security of our country.”
The Republican nominee also said he was “very concerned” about the threat to national security in the United States after a report from a whistleblower claimed that Biden’s federal agencies knowingly resettled nearly 400 Afghans listed as “potential threats to the national security’ across the United States over the past year.
Especially when you’re “coupled [the resettling of “potential threats” across the counrty] with the southern border issue,” he added.
“There have been terrorist issues with our southern border for years. And so that’s a real threat,” he explained. “The people in this community here locally are actually, you know, safety and security is coming as I’m talking to people while I’m knocking on doors, doing events around town. People are increasingly concerned about their personal safety, and there’s no way the Taliban didn’t know about this Al Qaeda leader, as you said, walking around in broad daylight.”
“Really, I think we need to know that we can trust people to lead,” Duke continued. “I think the fight for our country is really a fight to restore virtue and moral courage in leadership because if we can’t trust those who lead our country, I don’t know how much hope we have of seeing restoration. longed for… But we have a lack of confidence in those who lead.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. east.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
