Politics

U.S. President Joe Biden declared Tuesday he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline for completing a risky airlift of Americans, endangered Afghans and others seeking to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The decision defies allied leaders who want to give the evacuation more time and opens Biden to criticism that he caved to Taliban deadline demands.

Confronting their party’s most powerful leaders, moderate Democrats are tapping the brakes on President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar domestic program and insisting on their own priorities first in a smaller infrastructure deal. The interparty showdown is headed for a test vote Monday evening in the House.

The U.S. military reported its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul's airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the evacuation.

As the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, the president of the United States went into hiding. Biden’s most recent disappearing act in a moment of crisis proved once again that he’s not leading the nation and that America is without a commander-in-chief. But his belated and disgraceful address to the Nation served to highlight the 3 D’s that define the modern Democratic Party — dishonesty, delusion, and danger.

President Biden offered a defiant defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, blaming the swift collapse of the Afghan government and chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport on the refusal of the country’s military to stand and fight in the face of the Taliban advance.