Trump Says Black Lives Matter Emboldened by 'Incompetent' Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Republican former President Donald Trump has said that the United States' "incompetent" recent withdrawal from Afghanistan has emboldened foreign terrorists as well as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

"We are no longer respected after the pathetic and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan," Trump wrote in a statement issued on Monday. "The Taliban has totally retaken Afghanistan—a far more potent position than they had 20 years ago, after we spent trillions of dollars, with hundreds of thousands of lives lost (on both sides)."

"Our Country is far more susceptible to attack by outside terrorist groups than ever before," Trump's statement added. "This loss emboldens not only foreign terrorists, but also Antifa and BLM."

Antifa refers to anti-fascist protesters who oppose police brutality and white supremacists, far-right militias and other right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Democratic President Joe Biden for the rocky U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In an August 26 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said that the Biden administration offered "zero resistance" to the Taliban after Biden became president.

Trump also criticized Biden for leaving U.S. military equipment in the region, risking its falling into enemy control.

"I think it was the dumbest move anybody's ever made, perhaps in the history of our country, allowing this to happen," Trump said. "We look like fools all over the world. We're weak, we're pathetic. We're being led by people that have no idea what they're doing."

On August 14, Biden criticized the withdrawal agreements that Trump made with Taliban officials during Trump's presidency. Biden said Trump's deal "left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001."

During his presidency, Trump repeatedly made comments demonizing BLM. BLM is most associated with nationwide racial justice protests against anti-Black police brutality and systemic racism.

On September 8, Trump suggested that BLM activists are "anarchists, not protesters" and referred to them as "thugs" via Twitter. On June 30, Trump called a BLM street painting on New York City's Fifth Avenue a "symbol of hate."

At a September 25, 2020 "Blacks for Trump" rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump said that the BLM movement is part of a "mob rule" that is "destroying many Black lives." He never specified how BLM is "destroying many Black lives."

At the rally, Trump also made a number of other baseless claims about BLM. First, he claimed that the national BLM movement's "first phrase" was "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon."

Though the phrase was uttered during a 2015 protest march held by a BLM group in St. Paul, Minnesota, the group was not affiliated with the national BLM organization. The national BLM organization has never used the phrase, nor have any other BLM groups, and it was never said again by the St. Paul group, according to CNN.

Trump then said, "The stated goal of BLM organization, people, is to achieve the destruction of the nuclear family, abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish border security, abolish capitalism, and abolish school choice—that's what their stated goals are."

None of those things were among the goals once stated on the BLM national organization's website. The website's since-deleted "What We Believe" page, which is still accessible via archive.org, doesn't contain the words "abolish," "police," "prisons," "border," "capitalism" or "school."

The site's only mention of "nuclear family" was a stated desire to "disrupt" single-family structures by "supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another, especially our children."

Among the goals stated on the "What We Believe" page were aims to unite Black communities worldwide in opposition to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism while creating healing, empathetic communities free from prejudice.

Newsweek contacted Trump's office for contact.