Pompeo: We need to protect the homeland from future terrorist attacks

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discusses the Biden administration's response to Taliban advancement in Afghanistan after U.S. troop withdrawal on 'The Story.' 

MIKE POMPEO: We spent 20 years building up the Afghan forces there, giving them training and weapons, all the skill sets that they need. It’s their time. Everyone knew this day would come. Eventually, Afghan security forces had to stand up to protect their own, their children, their women, their sovereignty, their nation. I hope they’re able to regroup. I hope President Ghani can lead them forward. Our mission was set — we’re a month short of the attacks in New York City. Our mission set was twofold. One was to make sure that we took out Al-Qaida and destroyed it and second to make sure that something like what happened in New York that day could never happen again. We need to be focused on that. We have to be focused on the American interests there.

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I don’t know what the Biden administration is doing, how they’re handling it. President Trump’s mission to me was to negotiate peace and reconciliation and get our kids back home—That is the right thing to do, and this is now the Afghan fight. But it was also a mission to make sure that we were never attacked from Afghanistan again, the United States and the homeland were never attacked again. 

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE: