President Biden: No Way To Leave Afghanistan Without 'Chaos Ensuing'

President Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan during an interview withGeorge Stephanopoulos.

The president said that he knew that leaving the country after more than 20 years would cause chaos on the ground.

"No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, 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. I don't know how that happened," Biden said.

Stephanopoulos followed up by asking Biden: "So for you, that was always priced into the decision?"

"Yes," Biden replied before expanding on his answer.

"Now exactly what happened, I've not priced in," he explained. "But I knew that they're going to have an enormous -- Look, one of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out. What they would do. What are they doing now? They're cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, et cetera, but they're having -- we're having some more difficulty having those who helped us when we were in there."

Biden went on the defensive when Stephanopoulos asked him about photos and videos of Afghans chasing after a C-17 on the tarmac as it tried to take off.

"That was four days ago, five days ago!" Biden said, cutting off Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos followed up by asking: "What did you think when you first saw those pictures?"

"What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did," Biden answered.

Ultimately, Biden stood by his decision to pull troops out of the country in accordance with an agreement brokered by former President Donald Trump.

"Look, it was a simple choice, George," Biden said. "When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off -- that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened. That's simply what happened. And so the question was, in the beginning, the threshold question was, do we commit to leave within the timeframe we set, do we extend it to Sept. 1, or do we put significantly more troops in?"

Biden said that the only way the U.S. could maintain a presence in Afghanistan was with a surge of troops, something he was not willing to do.

"I had a simple choice. If I said, 'we're gonna stay,' then we'd better be prepared to put a whole lot hell of a lot more troops in," he said.

Even if Trump had not agreed to pull troops out by May 1, Biden said he would have tried to end the longest-running war in American history.

"I would've tried to figure out how to withdraw those troops, yes, because look, George. There is no good time to leave Afghanistan. Fifteen years ago would've been a problem, 15 years from now. The basic choice is am I gonna send your sons and your daughters to war in Afghanistan in perpetuity?"