Biden’s unlikely defender on Afghanistan: He 'had the balls to do it'

Republicans who are willing to publicly defend President Joe Biden on the crisis in Afghanistan have been few and far between. But Biden has found an unlikely defender on the right: firebrand author/pundit Ann Coulter.

On August 31, Coulter tweeted, "Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the balls to do it."

Biden has drawn criticism from neocon war hawks and MAGA Republicans over the U.S.’ departure from Afghanistan. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and former National Security Adviser John Bolton argue that the Donald Trump/Mike Pompeo plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan was badly flawed and that Biden was wrong to follow it. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump supporters say Trump and Pompeo had a great plan for withdrawal and that Biden didn't implement it properly.

Meanwhile, Coulter's take is different from either Cheney and Bolton or McCarthy. Coulter is arguing that Biden did something that Trump should have done much earlier in his presidency: withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Another unlikely Biden defender on the right has been paleoconservative isolationist Patrick Buchanan. Although Buchanan was a major influence on the MAGA movement, he isn't pointing the finger at Biden. In an August 27 article for the right-wing Antiwar.com website, Buchanan defended Biden and criticized the Afghanistan War as a failed exercise in neoconservative nation building that was doomed from the beginning. Buchanan wrote, "Say what you will about President Joe Biden, he has stuck to his guns on ending America's 20-year involvement in Afghanistan's forever war."

Here are some responses to Coulter's August 31 tweet: