Fox News’s Wallace grills Blinken on al-Qaida and U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken was pressed by host Chris Wallace about al-Qaida in Afghanistan, as the U.S. continues to evacuate Americans and Afghans from the country.

Video Transcript

CHRIS WALLACE: The president on Friday said a few other things that were flat wrong, mister Secretary. Here he is on the threat from Al-Qaeda.

JOE BIDEN: What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al-Qaeda gone?

CHRIS WALLACE: But a UN report this summer says that Al-Qaeda is present in 15 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan and General Milley said this summer that if the Taliban fell, or rather took over Kabul, that he was going to have to upgrade the terror threat from Al-Qaeda. What the president said just wasn't true.

ANTONY BLINKEN: Chris, step back for one second. First, as we all know, we went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission and one purpose in mind. And that was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11, to bring bin Laden to justice, which we did a decade ago, and to diminish the capacity of Al-Qaeda to do the same thing again, to attack us from Afghanistan. And that to the president's point has been successful. We got bin Laden a decade ago.

CHRIS WALLACE: Mister Secretary, the president said Al-Qaeda is gone, simple question, is Al-Qaeda gone from Afghanistan?

ANTONY BLINKEN: Al-Qaeda's capacity to do what it did on 9/11 to attack us, to attack our partners or allies from Afghanistan is vastly, vastly diminished.

CHRIS WALLACE: Is it gone?

ANTONY BLINKEN: Are there Al-Qaeda members and remnants in Afghanistan? Yes, but what the president was referring to was his capacity to do what it did on 9/11 and that capacity has been very successfully diminished.