Rep. Claudia Tenney to Newsmax: Biden 'Calculated, Cynical,' Not 'Out of It'

President Joe Biden is a "calculated" politician who just wanted credit for ending the war in Afghanistan, regardless of the consequences, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y. told Newsmax on Saturday.

"I think President Biden is lying to the public," Tenney told "Wake Up America Weekend," commenting on testimony offered from top Pentagon leaders before Congress this past week.

"I don't think that President Biden is as out of it as everyone thinks. Certainly, he has elements of you know, failing memory and all that, but I think [he is a] calculated, cynical career politician."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie all testified they advised Biden to leave at least 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. The president, however, said in a television interview that he didn't "recall" that advice.

Tenney said that is because Biden wanted to be able to say the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, and he wanted a slogan so that he could say on Sept. 11 he pulled out of the war, "incredibly, to dishonor the memory of the horrible tragedy on our soil back 20 years ago."

But Biden took action "without understanding the real strategic interests," Tenney said. "He only had a political calculation, not the fact that we now have seen 13 innocent service members murdered who never should have been murdered. He was warned by the generals, and I think he's impatient. I think he's all about politics 24-7 and he never really worried about the consequences."

Such things happen with politicians who "don't have to have consequential elections," Tenney said. "They don't have much competition. They just get reelected."

Biden also "lied repeatedly through the course of the spring and the summer," Tenney said.

"He said al-Qaida was gone from Afghanistan," Tenney said. "That's simply not true. He has said that the war is over. Gen. Mackenzie indicated that the war is not over in fact, and he's not confident in our over-the-horizon capability in Afghanistan to fight terrorism."

Tenney also discussed the testimony from Milley, who defended his calls last year to his Chinese counterpart, including saying he'd warn if an attack was imminent from the United States.

"Obviously it's outside the chain of command," Tenney said. "We have a civilian command, and the buck stops with Joe Biden. The reason we have a civilian command is our founders knew that we did not want a military dictatorship or tyranny over our ability as citizens to be free, and so the strength and power of an armed military against the citizens is what? That is why we have a bill of rights and why our constitution was set up in the first place."

But Milley decided he was "superior" to then-President Donald Trump, and he should "warn our greatest enemy on Earth right now, China and the Chinese Communist Party, who are threatening our very freedoms.

"He knows this is not authorized by our military code of justice or our system of government," Tenney noted.

Meanwhile, when asked if she is hearing any plans from the administration or Democrats about Afghanistan moving forward, Tenney said she thinks Democrats "just want to wash their hands of this entire situation."

"They don't want to deal with that," she said. "It's ugly. It's messy. They made a colossal error. They backed the president on it or they were silent."

Meanwhile, the administration has "just propped up a terrorist state," Tenney said.

Further, the Taliban is getting help from China and Russia, the congresswoman said, and that is "not a good thing for our country."

Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV's including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here