Biden: No way to execute Afghanistan withdrawal 'without chaos'

There was no other way the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan could have unfolded aside from the way it did, President Biden suggested in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

Biden has faced criticism across the political spectrum for the implementation of the evacuation, which is not yet complete. But he's held firm to his belief that his administration has continually made the right calls, despite harrowing images of the chaotic scenes at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

When Stephanopoulos asked him if he thought the process could have been handled any differently, Biden said again doubled down. "We're gonna go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens," the president argued, explaining that such a possibility was, in Stephanopoulous' words, "always priced into the decision" to leave.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.