Trump teases potential 2024 bid amid Afghanistan crisis

Former President TrumpDonald TrumpBiden envoy calls on North Korea to restart nuclear talks Biden’s misguided about-face on COVID testing puts us all at risk Jan. 6 committee to seek lawmaker records MORE teased a potential 2024 presidential run in an interview released Tuesday. 

“We won it twice. I’ve won it twice and now I have to win it again. I guess if we’re going to save the country, look … I’ll make a decision,” Trump told conservative talk show host Lisa Boothe on her podcast “The Truth with Lisa Booth.” 

“It won’t be maybe for a little while. You know, a lot of people would like to see a decision immediately, but perhaps there’s also a big group, including maybe myself, that would like to see it after the midterms,” he continued. 

Trump has made repeated false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election, and has stated that the race was “rigged” and tainted by widespread voter fraud. However, there has been no substantial evidence to suggest that the election results were subject to widespread election fraud. 

The former president hit President BidenJoe BidenHouse Democrats punt key vote on budget to Tuesday Biden envoy calls on North Korea to restart nuclear talks Biden to decide on Afghanistan troop withdrawal extension in next 24 hours: report MORE in the interview, citing the situation on the U.S. southern border and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. 

“Nobody’s ever seen embarrassment like this, between the border and Afghanistan [but] I guess Afghanistan blows everything away,” Trump said. “There’s never been anything like that … such stupidity and incompetence so I think you’re going to be very happy.”

Trump touted his handling of the situation in Afghanistan, while hitting Biden’s handling of the U.S. troop withdrawal from the country. 

“We had [Afghanistan] so under control, like you wouldn’t believe I dealt with a, I dealt with the Taliban at the highest level,” Trump said. “The military would have come out last, not first. That was the big mistake — they took the military and they left 35 or 45,000 people right in harm’s way. This was a horrible miscarriage.” 

The Hill was the first outlet to obtain the interview, which will air in full later Tuesday.

Trump’s remarks came as the Biden administration confirmed Tuesday that the president is not planning on extending the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. 

Biden has defended his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan after a roughly 20-year presence in the country, saying U.S. national security goals were achieved, and it was time for the Afghan army to take matters into their own hands. 

However, that effort has been thrown into chaos as the U.S. tries to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies amid the Taliban takeover. The U.S. military flew out roughly 12,700 people on 37 flights on Monday, the largest single day of airlifts out of the country. 

Updated at 1:35 p.m.