James Carville Is Mad As Hell About The ‘Hysterical And Stupid’ Coverage Of Biden’s Afghanistan Pullout

It doesn’t take much to set James Carville off. On Wednesday night, as Mediaite reports, Brian Williams got an earful when he asked the legendarily yelly Democratic strategist how Joe Biden’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan might affect the 2022 midterms. Carville had some thoughts—specifically about the media and its “hysterical and stupid” coverage of Biden’s military move:

“Well first of all, there’s no elegant way to lose a war. We lost this war 15 years ago. All Joe Biden was doing is telling us what time it is. And the hysterical and stupid coverage of the mainstream press, it’s just been awful… It looks bad. The country looks bad. When you lose a war, you don’t look good. This war was lost a long time ago. Joe Biden had nothing to do with it. He wanted us out before that.”

Biden, of course, has been at the center of the backlash over the decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, even from some fellow Democrats. When Williams asked whether Biden could benefit from having “more vocal friends in Washington” to point out that while Biden made the official call to withdraw troops from this long-running war, it’s a move that has been many years in the making, Carville again put part of the onus on the press—and our short memory for our own history:

“[Biden] would greatly benefit if the press would cover this accurately. And yes, you always have mealy-mouthed Democrats. And I can’t tell you the number of phone calls I’ve gotten… where people say, ‘You know, he did the right thing, but he’s going about it the wrong way.’ And I’ve said: Do they teach a course at West Point or Annapolis or Johns Hopkins on how to lose a war? No. There’s no good way to lose a war! We lost this war. We lost it a long time before Joe Biden became president. All he’s doing is getting us out of there… This is not the Battle of Midway, alright. This is a defeat. And we’ve got to understand that as a country… Warren Buffett said the only thing people learn from history [is] people never learn from history.”

Suffice it to say, Carville is Team Biden.

(Via Mediaite)