Marc Thiessen questions whether Joe Biden would have given order to get al-Baghdadi
Former Vice President Joe Biden was the only member of Barack Obama’s national security team that opposed the mission to kill Usama bin Laden, notes Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
Marc Thiessen pushed back Tuesday on former Vice President Joe Biden over his refusal to give President Trump credit for the raid that led to the death of Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend.
“For the guy who opposed the [Usama] Bin Laden operation to criticize the guy who authorized the Baghdadi operation, that’s pretty rich,” the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush told “The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino.”
A day after Trump announced that a U.S. military raid had resulted in the death of al-Baghdadi, Biden made a point of not giving the commander-in-chief any credit for the mission.
BIDEN WON’T GIVE TRUMP ANY CREDIT FOR AL-BAGHDADI RAID
In a lengthy and scathing statement, the former vice president, a front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, claimed that the raid happened in spite of — not because of — Trump.
“I’m glad President Trump ordered the mission. But as more details of the raid emerge, it’s clear that this victory was not due to Donald Trump’s leadership. It happened despite his ineptitude as commander-in-chief,” Biden said Monday.
WHO’S LEADING ISIS NOW THAT AL-BAGHDADI’S DEAD
Thiessen said Tuesday that Biden probably would not have approved the mission targeting Baghdadi, given his opposition to the May 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Bin Laden in Pakistan.
“He said [to Barack Obama], if this goes wrong, you can say goodbye to a second term,” Thiessen said, claiming that Biden’s criticism was “political.”
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“Joe Biden is the guy who advised Barack Obama to pull all our troops out of Iraq in 2011,” Thiessen said. “He actually gave a speech where he said it was the proudest moment of his life to call those troops home. That’s what led to the rise of ISIS.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
