The United States is "less safe" now than ever because President Joe Biden has "destroyed the respect" other countries had for America with his actions in Afghanistan and on the border, former President Donald Trump declared Wednesday.
"The border is incompetent, totally incompetent," Trump said in an extensive interview with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo on her show ' "Mornings with Maria." "We had the strongest border. Now it is the weakest border. Drugs are pouring in, people pouring in unchecked."
Trump added that a "military defeat" is a "psychological defeat" and that countries like Russia and China and North Korea are "watching this disaster and laughing at us; having a good time."
"Europe is laughing," he added. "Europe has been very tough to deal with. Europe is as bad as China in many ways in terms of trade, certainly in terms of ripping us off on military and Europe is watching this, and they are laughing, they are all laughing. Not funny for us but funny for them so badly handled."
"You've got to get people out, you got to get them out first," Trump said. "Then tack your equipment out and after the equipment is out, you bomb the hell out of the port so nobody else can use them. I was going to do that."
"We can't have this," he said. "I frankly would have bombed every one of the ports, because you knew they weren't going to."
Trump also slammed ex-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country as the Taliban took over Kabul, as a "crook."
"If you think this ends yesterday night, that is just the beginning," said the former president. "The Taliban are tough and great negotiators. Can you imagine having the military go home, and leaving all those people? That is called the lamb being led to slaughter."
And when asked if the United States should formally recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, Trump responded that the takeover was a "coup of incompetent people."
"Our leadership was incompetent people," said Trump. "They took over a country in one day...I had a very hard deal with them. It was conditioned, I spoke to the boss; I spoke to the head man, and, frankly, I got along with him great."