Secretary of State Blinken’s testimony was more of the same gaslighting we’ve come to expect from the Biden administration. Especially when it comes to its disaster in Afghanistan.

Let’s take one talking point that had clearly been scripted for Blinken.

“We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan,” said Blinken.

That’s not true. But even if it were, it’s a really terrible defense.

Biden has been in office for quite a while now. The administration has shown no hesitancy in wrecking previous plans and policies from the Trump administration. But when it comes to the Afghanistan withdrawal, Biden demanded credit for the withdrawal and then blamed Trump.

What exactly was keeping the Biden administration from spending its time in office coming up with a plan? Any plan.

Any plan would have been better than Blinken’s actual plan which consisted of…

1. Supporting a complete military withdrawal

2. Leaving a huge U.S. diplomatic presence in Kabul

3. Falsely claiming that the Taliban were going to negotiate a peaceful resolution

4. Scrambling for a panicked evacuation at the very last minute

Instead of making the U.S. evacuation a top priority, the Biden admin prioritized a military withdrawal, not a civilian evacuation. This had nothing to do with the Trump admin. And it had a good deal to do with Blinken’s incredibly bad judgment on the issue.

Blinken said the Biden administration was handcuffed by Trump’s agreement with the Taliban, which in part reduced the U.S. troop presence to 2,500 by the time Biden took office.

The actual collapse didn’t begin until Biden announced the withdrawal and reduced troop numbers to around 600, which was deemed enough to secure the embassy, but not Bagram Air Base, leading to the abandonment of the one secure evacuation route out of the country.

Milley and other military leaders bear blame for going that route, but Blinken gets the blame for prioritizing a diplomatic presence over a civilian withdrawal.