Seth Moulton called the US withdrawal effort a 'total f---ing disaster' following his secret trip to Kabul

Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton takes part in a press conference following a tour of the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, MA on Nov. 4, 2017. He toured the hospital with Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. The nurses aide who was allegedly playing games on her computer at the Bedford VA Medical Center when a Vietnam veteran went into cardiac arrest retired from the agency as officials were moving to fire her, Shulkin revealed during the press conference.

Craig Walker/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

• Rep. Seth Moulton slammed the US withdrawal efforts in Kabul in an interview with New York Magazine Thursday.
• He laid blame on the Biden administration, saying "the way they have handled this has been a total f---ing disaster."
• Moulton said the failure of evacuation effort "will be measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can't get out."
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said the US withdrawal and evacuation efforts were a "total f---ing disaster" following his "secret" informational visit to Kabul with GOP Rep. Peter Meijer.

In an interview with New York Magazine Thursday morning during his layover in Madrid, the Democratic lawmaker described the scene at the Hamid Karzai International Airport as "the most visceral, raw view of humanity that I will probably ever see in my life."

"The thing that everybody needs to understand, even if you completely agree with the Biden administration's decision to withdraw, the way they have handled this has been a total f---ing disaster," Moulton told the Intelligencer. "It will be measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can't get out."

Earlier this week, Moulton and Meijer, both US veterans, went to Kabul in an effort to push President Joe Biden to extend the August 31 deadline to evacuate Americans and Afghans who helped the US following the Taliban takeover of the country.

"Refugees are going to start dying today if we don't get them help in places like Qatar," Moulton said. "Thousands will get slaughtered by the Taliban if we don't somehow devise a plan to get them out before we leave."

"These are all things that the administration has failed to do, and I know that because the people on the ground are telling me," he added.

Moulton blamed the Biden administration on the messy withdrawal of US troops out of Afghanistan and the subsequent disorganized evacuation of Kabul, saying he was the only lawmaker who sounded the alarm on the stakes of withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan.

"I would get on these calls with like a small number of members of Congress, mostly Democrats, who would all very politely say, 'We love you Biden administration, but can you do a little bit more on this,'" Moulton told the Intelligencer. "I would be the only one who would just say starkly, 'Here are the stakes. People are going to die.'"

Meijer and Moulton's unannounced trip to Kabul was met with swift bipartisan backlash from other members of Congress, as well as the White House and Pentagon. Despite the criticism, Moulton said the visit had the "lightest footprint of any codel (congressional delegation) in history."

"Our goal was to be as efficient as possible at finding the truth and saving a few lives," he said.

He went on to say that "there's nobody in Congress who understands our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan better than me."

"For a colleague to second guess this decision is pretty hypocritical and it just shows how many people don't understand what's at stake," Moulton said. "The overwhelming response from everyone we met on the ground was, 'Thank you for coming.' That's what matters."

He added: "What matters are the people on the ground, not the critics in Congress."

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