WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and 17 of his Senate colleagues sent a letter to Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the chairs of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ahead of a closed joint hearing on Wednesday to receive testimony from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on President Biden’s disastrous and deadly withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

In the letter, Senator Tillis and his colleagues called for a portion of this joint hearing to be open to the public so that American families and all impacted by the botched withdrawal can hear directly from Secretaries Blinken and Austin.

“President Biden’s misguided and dangerous decisions in his botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan led to the United States most stunning, unforced and humiliating defeat in decades,” wrote the senators. “In the withdrawal, America lost 13 brave service members, left billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment to be seized by the Taliban, stranded hundreds of American citizens behind enemy lines and returned Afghanistan to the same terrorist-coddling extremists who ruled it on September 11, 2001.” 

“That’s why it is imperative that a portion of this joint hearing be open to the public so that American families and all impacted by the botched withdrawal can hear directly from Secretaries Blinken and Austin,” the senators continued. “We understand the importance of also having a closed portion of this hearing to discuss sensitive or classified information, but cannot allow this opportunity to pass without ensuring that the American people get answers from the Biden administration.”

The full text of the letter is available here.

###