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Washington, D.C. — Today, Chairman McCaul joined Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” to discuss topics including security assistance for America’s international partners, Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for America’s Afghan partners abandoned during the Biden administration’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, and threats coming from the country under Taliban rule.

 

WATCH HERE.

 

– Highlights from the interview –

 

On the recent ISIS-K attack in Moscow and threats emanating from Afghanistan:

“[United States Central Command] Commander, General Kurilla, just testified this week before Congress that within six months that ISIS-K would have the capability to operate outside of Afghanistan to do external operations. And it only took six days before they hit Moscow …ISR capability — that intelligence surveillance reconnaissance — puts us in danger, where this is a new battleground training ground for ISIS.”

On the State Department’s failure to plan to evacuate U.S. personnel from Afghanistan:

“I think what the State Department thought they could do is continue our operations in the embassy and normalize with the Taliban and stay there beyond the military retrograde. And I think that was a serious error in judgment. Ambassador Wilson was the major culprit behind that, [but that blame goes] all the way up to the White House.”

On SIVs for America’s Afghan allies:

“Well, we promised them, we will get them out. The Afghan partners, the interpreters, we left them behind. And that’s the biggest sin of the Afghan evacuation. I think the 12,000 SIVs is a great response and a great start to that. I will commend Speaker Johnson. I worked very closely with him to make sure we had that in there.'”

On security assistance for America’s international partners:

“[Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s] commitment is to put it on the floor after Easter. And we are working on this bill. … I would like to be done as soon as possible. I think the situation in Ukraine is dire… [Speaker Johnson] understands this.”

On humanitarian assistance in Gaza:

“Look, logistics and security are the issue. Israel knows it’s important to get that humanitarian assistance in, because for a lot of reasons, we have to stabilize southern Gaza. But they also need to go into Rafah and take out Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas. So that’s a competing interest here.”

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