Republican Senator Lindsey Graham believes President Joe Biden will have committed a 'dereliction of duty' if every American citizen and every Afghan who aided the US isn't evacuated out of Afghanistan - and that 'Joe needs to go' if they're abandoned.
'If we leave one American behind, if we don’t get all those Afghans who stepped up to the plate to help us out then Joe Biden, in my view, has committed a high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution and should be impeached,' the South Carolina lawmaker said on Fox & Friends Friday.
His comments come as news surfaced the US paused evacuation flights
Graham noted that France and the United Kingdom have sent troops outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport into Taliban-controlled Kabul to rescue nationals.
He urged the US to embark on a joint operation with other western countries to 'get everybody out who deserves to be out.'
'We're duty-bound to get every American citizen out, we're honor-bound to get those Afghans who fought along our side out,' Graham said.
Lindsey Graham told morning show Fox & Friends that 'Joe needs to go' if all Americans and American allies aren't evacuated out of Afghanistan
Biden has stood firm on his Afghanistan policy, deflecting criticism a number of times this week
'Any military commander would be court-martialed for leaving our people behind, and I think the commander in chief owes it to every American citizen and owes it to the Afghans who fought along our side because if we leave them behind, they're going to get slaughtered.'
British, French and German special forces have been speeding into Kabul in armored cars, despite the huge risk from Taliban fighters, while the US forces are reportedly under strict orders to remain at the airport.
However Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced earlier this week that the US military, which already has 6,000 troops there, doesn't have the capability to rescue people stuck outside of the airport.
Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that the US intends to get every American that wants to leave out and 'that’s exactly what we’ll do, and are accomplishing right now.'
NATO is now pleading with the US to stay at the airport past Biden's August 31st deadline to save more evacuees from the Taliban, an unusual move for the international body that signals the dire circumstances.
There are thousands of Americans still stuck in Afghanistan and roughly 18,000 Afghan translators in the special immigrant visa pipeline, according to the most recent data.
US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20
aliban fighters guard the Afghanistan central bank in Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, August 19
Afghans gather outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country
He said the US military presence in Bagram was an 'insurance policy against another 9/11' that Biden had canceled.
He attacked the president as a 'wrecking ball regarding foreign policy and national security for 40 years' - despite having worked closely with Biden on foreign policy and even traveling to Afghanistan and Iraq together.
Two men forged a mutual admiration working together in the Senate. Graham took office in 2003 and Biden served as senator from Delaware from 1973 until 2009 when he joined the Obama administration. Both were on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden once said Graham had the 'best instincts in the Senate,' according to Washington Post.
Graham also held Biden in high regard, as he revealed in an emotional 2015 interview.
'He is as good a man as god ever created. He’s said some of the most heartfelt things anybody could ever say to me. He is the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics,' Graham told Huffington Post, visibly choked up.
But last fall Graham joined Donald Trump in calling for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the president's only surviving son.
Biden and Graham forged a mutual admiration dating back to their time in the Senate together (pictured at an event in 2004, the year after Graham began serving)
Asked by Stephen Colbert in December whether their relationship could be fixed, Biden said 'Lindsey's been a personal disappointment because I was a personal friend of his.'
Graham had tried to call Biden after he won the election to reconcile. He told him he only went after Hunter to satisfy Trump supporters, according to the New York Times.
Biden, who reportedly viewed it as an unforgivable attack, said he would work with any Republican but described Graham's approach as two-faced.
But on Friday morning, the Republican lawmaker reiterated his call for a possible impeachment several times.
'I think the military is not going to go beyond the air base - the airport - I think that's a huge mistake. I think we're going to leave thousands of Afghans behind and most likely some American citizens because we don't have the will to impose on the Taliban an evacuation plan in our interest,' he said.
'And I do believe - and I don't say this lightly - that if Joe Biden leaves a bunch of people behind who helped us, he deserves to be impeached... Joe needs to go if he does this.'
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