Trump on Taliban peace talks: 'As far as I'm concerned they're dead'

(Image credit: Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images)

published 9 September 2019

It doesn't look like the Taliban will be heading to Camp David anytime soon.

President Trump tweeted a surprising thread Sunday claiming he'd canceled secret meetings with Taliban leaders over the terrorist group's claim of responsibility for a recent attack. And when asked about those talks outside the White House on Monday, Trump responded by saying "as far as I’m concerned, they’re dead."

The Trump administration has been working for months to slowly get the Taliban to the negotiating table, and then to wrangle a peace deal. The terrorist group would like to see the U.S. completely out of Afghanistan, but the U.S. is aiming to keep a presence in the country. Talks were supposed to progress at Camp David in the U.S. sometime in the near future, but after a recent attack in Afghanistan that left a U.S. soldier and 11 others dead, Trump said Sunday he called off the talks.

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Also on Monday, Trump railed against Bahamian hurricane survivors who were seeking shelter in Florida but were turned away after they'd boarded a ferry to the states. "I don't want to allow people who weren't supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people," Trump said, borrowing the dubious allegation he has levied at just about any foreign group that tries to enter the U.S.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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