News, Culture and NPR for Central & Northern Michigan
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
91.7FM Alpena and WCML-TV Channel 6 Alpena are off the air. Click here to learn more.

Rep. Huizenga responds to President Biden’s address following attacks at Kabul airport

U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, (R-Zeeland, MI-2)
U.S. House Of Representatives / Votesmart
U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, (R-Zeeland, MI-2)

U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga appeared on Facebook Live asking if President Joe Biden answered a central question: Will the United States be out of Afghanistan by August 31st?

“Or are we going to wait until we have all of our citizens out as well as out allies out? It was not clear," Huizenga said.

The Zeeland Republican voiced his concern about the terror threat at Kabul Airport — an airport he said has one runway. If anything happens to it, the entire airport shuts down, Huizenga said.

“We’ve got one exit point. That’s it out of the entire country. One exit point. And strategically this is just stupid. It’s dumb. I just cannot understand how we possibly would have thought, and the President would have thought, that this was a good idea moving ahead and shutting down the Bagram.”

Huizenga was referring to the Bagram Airfield, which has multiple runways and is in a remote area of Afghanistan that the U.S. military abandoned in early July.

Representative Huizenga suggested the U.S. Military retake the airfield as a secondary exit making sure all Americans and Afghan allies are evacuated. Huizenga said the U.S. must stay beyond the self-imposed deadline. If additional troops are needed, he said, he’s all for it.