Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” is comparing supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol to militants in Afghanistan.
On Monday, Colbert defended the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as he asked, “Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a Civil War in Afghanistan?”
“We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill,” he added drawing laughs from the audience.
The late-night host’s comments referred to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when Trump supporters stormed the building to halt the certification of the Electoral College vote count.
They come after the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal from the country.
Watch the video below:
Stephen Colbert likens Trump voters to the Taliban: "Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a Civil War in Afghanistan? We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill." pic.twitter.com/XztIatECGS
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 17, 2021
During remarks at the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden defended the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan as he asked, “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war, when Afghan troops will not?”
He later added, “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
Additionally, he argued that there “was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”
Colbert is not the only person to compare those who stormed the Capitol to militants.
Daniel Hodges, a Washington, D.C., Metropolitan police officer who helped defend the Capitol, said that those who stormed the building are “terrorists.”
Though he acknowledged that “I can see why someone would take issue with the title of terrorist. It’s gained a lot of notoriety in our vocabulary in the past few decades, and we’d like to believe that no, that couldn’t happen here. No domestic terrorism. No homegrown threats.”
Biden has received bipartisan criticism for his execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan as images and videos surfaced of Afghans clinging to the sides of U.S. military jets trying to escape the country.
