WASHINGTON – Former President donald trump said during a post-presidency interview with an author that he had to deal with a Afghanistan-related issue, even though he no longer had foreign policy powers, according to audio shared exclusively with NBC News.
“The reason I’m doing this and spending a lot of time on this is I have to stand up, because I’m doing everything with Afghanistan,” Trump told author Ramin Setoodeh in a post-presidency interview. Did he blow up that Afghanistan?”
Setoodeh, who wrote the new book “Apprentice in Wonderland,” previously described the conversation with Trump in Afghanistan, saying in an interview with CNN that Trump “seemed to think he still had some foreign policy powers.”
But president Joe Biden I had banned Trump to receive intelligence briefings that are normally given to former presidents.
Reached for clarification on Trump’s comments on Afghanistan, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung criticized Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan as “botched” and pointed to the deaths of 13 military.
“This is Biden’s fault and he will never be able to forget it,” Cheung said in a statement.
He did not address why Trump discussed how to handle a foreign policy issue when he no longer held those powers.
In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, Setoodeh cast doubt on Trump’s memory, saying his memory of his reality show “The Apprentice” was “much clearer than his memory of what he did in the White House.”
“He stumbled on the chronology of recent events,” Setoodeh said. “He stumbled in terms of what had happened in our interviews. When we talked, he couldn’t remember talking to me between the first and second conversations.
Trump’s “short-term memory was unclear,” Setoodeh added. “It was very foggy and he had trouble remembering things.”
Biden and Trump are the longest-serving presidents in American history. Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, have each worked to paint the other as mentally unfit for office.
In his statement to NBC News, Cheung attacked Setoodeh’s characterization of Trump’s memory.
Cheung criticized Setoodeh for having “chosen to allow Trump Derangement Syndrome to rot his brain like so many other losers whose existence revolves around President Trump.”
The vote indicates that voters are concerned about what candidates’ age might mean for their ability to hold office. Voters appear to view the issue as more of a liability for Biden than Trump, according to polls.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
