Thune warns Biden pulling all US troops from Afghanistan is 'big mistake,' opens door to next 9/11

Sen. John Thune, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, said Wednesday that President Biden's decision to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan is the wrong decision and warned that such a move could allow terror groups to mount another 9/11-style attack.

"It is not the right move," Thune said on Just the News' "The Water Cooler with David Brody." "I think it's a big mistake. I know there's a lot of pressure from the left in this country to get out of Afghanistan, but we have a lot invested there over a long period of time. And the one thing that we don't want to do is create the conditions there that are favorable for terrorist organizations to train, and prepare, and plan attacks against the United States."

Thune spoke within hours of Biden officially saying all U.S. troop will by Sept. 11 be out of Afghanistan, where terrorists plotted the deadly 9/11 attacks on America. 

"The question they can't answer is, 'What happens with the Taliban, if they're back in charge in Afghanistan?' These decisions need to be conditions based, David. They need to be based on what's happening on the ground – not artificial timelines. We've said that repeatedly," the South Dakota lawmaker told Brady.

Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. will start bringing back troops May 1 and will have all of them home by by Sept. 11 – the 20th anniversary of the 2001 attacks. There are roughly 2,500 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan.

"We don't have a big force there right now," the Senate minority whip continued. "But we haven't lost lives there of late, but we need to maintain an adequate force to ensure that all the gains that we've achieved there these past many years, which have come at great sacrifice both in form of loss of life and injuries to a lot of American servicemen and women, that those are not in vain."