Aug. 17, 2021: Bidens big bet on Afghanistan
Before President Joe Biden took the podium to address the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan on Monday, senior Obama White House advisor David Axelrod was on CNN giving him some free advice: \u201cYou cannot defend the execution here. \u2026 This has been a disaster,\u201d he said. \u201cHe needs to own that failure. \u2026 He\u2019s the commander in chief.\u201d\nAs Axelrod said after, Biden did anything but. Even as he asserted that \u201cthe buck stops with me,\u201d Biden pointed fingers at everyone but himself: Donald Trump tied his hands with his deal with the Taliban, the Afghan army wasn\u2019t willing to fight, and some civilians didn\u2019t initially want to leave.\nMost of all, he defended the pullout he\u2019s been advocating for years.\nRaghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio.\xa0Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.