Jake Tapper Marked Five Years Since the Abbey Gate Disaster and the Fall of Kabul With One Outrageous Omission

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Few can forget Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban-fleeing refugees who stormed runways and climbed into American AC-130s’ landing gear compartments with gruesome caught-video results.

Even fewer should forget the Abbey Gate disaster of five years ago today.

It culminated in thirteen families burying the last American sons and daughters to lose their lives in that foreign misadventure but ahead of today’s anniversary, Jake Tapper decided to use it to attack Trump and Hegseth.

The Segment Was About Iran but the Disaster Was Kabul

CNN's Jake Tapper aired a segment tying War Secretary Pete Hegseth's current – and, yes, arguably failed – Iran strategy to the anniversary of the fall of Kabul, the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 American service members dead at Abbey Gate and stranded Americans and allies behind Taliban lines.

Tapper's report named Donald Trump repeatedly.

What the segment never did was mention Joe Biden even once, despite Biden being the sitting president who executed the withdrawal that killed those 13 Americans.

Mediaite, no conservative outlet, flagged the omission, describing Tapper's anniversary coverage of "the horrific fall of Kabul" as containing "one glaring omission."

When outlets across the spectrum notice the same missing name in a report specifically about a withdrawal Biden botched, that is not a coincidence of editing.

That is a decision about whose name belongs in the story and whose does not.

Republicans on the House Committee Already Wrote the Report Tapper Skipped

Tapper did not need to guess who was responsible.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Republicans, spent more than a year compiling what it called a comprehensive report on the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, drawing on testimony from generals, inspectors general and State Department officials who lived through the collapse.

Committee Chairman Michael McCaul went further this year, publicly slamming Democrats for their "continued failure to hold Biden administration accountable" for what his committee called a "chaotic and deadly" withdrawal.

That report and that statement exist specifically so a journalist covering the anniversary would not have to rely on memory or vibes.

Tapper had it available and still built an entire segment blaming the man who was not in office when the withdrawal happened.

The Families Still Waiting for the Apology CNN Never Demanded

The families who buried their children after Abbey Gate have spent five years asking the one question Tapper's segment never bothered to answer.

One Gold Star father, whose Marine son died in the bombing, has publicly called Biden "feckless" for his handling of the withdrawal and its aftermath, according to Newsweek's reporting.

Other Abbey Gate families have testified before Congress demanding accountability from the Biden administration directly, on the record, under oath.

None of those families got the chance to hear Tapper say the name of the man they hold responsible.

CNN had five years to book a single one of them.

Instead it spent the anniversary attacking the guy who inherited the wreckage.

CNN Has Spent Years Protecting the Same Name

This is not an isolated editorial choice.

The Media Research Center found major networks delivered 92 percent negative coverage of Trump in his first 100 days in office, a figure that dwarfs historical norms for any administration.

A separate Washington Examiner analysis found Biden received less negative media coverage than any president on record during his term, while Trump has consistently drawn the most hostile coverage of any modern president.

Those two data points are not separate stories.

They are the same story told from opposite ends: one man gets buried, the other gets protected, and CNN's Kabul anniversary segment is a textbook example of the mechanism at work in real time.

Thirteen families buried their sons and daughters because of decisions made in the Situation Room under Joe Biden's command.

Charlie Kirk exposed the eventual outcome.

Heritage Foundation national security experts have spent years documenting exactly how that withdrawal was botched, from the collapse of Bagram Air Base to the surrender of American equipment to the Taliban to the refugees, too.

None of that requires Trump's name to explain.

It requires Biden's name, and Tapper found a way to build an entire retrospective without using it once.

Tapper had an entire segment to say Joe Biden's name once.

He didn't.

Opposing any more foreign misadventures is one thing.

At the end of the day, honoring all the sons and daughters lost in Afghanistan should be what’s important.

Tapper forgot that.

Whether through the Khyber pass, or elsewhere, no empire has ever crossed into Afghanistan and left better for the experience.

Not the British whose retreat from Kabul in 1842 saw only one man survive.

Not the Soviets in the 1980's.

Americans learned, but now many want your kids and grandkids hitting the ground in another geographic fortress of a country.

Sources:

  • The Gateway Pundit, "Jake Tapper Does Report on the Disastrous Withdrawal From Afghanistan – Names Trump Repeatedly But NEVER ONCE Mentions Joe Biden," The Gateway Pundit, August 20, 2026.
  • Mediaite, "Jake Tapper Notes the Anniversary of the Horrific Fall of Kabul, With One Glaring Omission," Mediaite, August 2026.
  • NewsBusters, "AWFUL: Jake Tapper Uses the Fall of Kabul to Hit Trump, Hegseth on Iran," NewsBusters, August 16, 2026.
  • House Foreign Affairs Committee, "McCaul Slams Democrats for Continued Failure to Hold Biden Administration Accountable for Chaotic and Deadly Afghanistan Withdrawal," House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans, 2026.
  • Newsweek, "Father of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Blasts Biden: Feckless," Newsweek, 2026.
  • Washington Examiner, "Biden received less negative media coverage than any president on record while Trump received most: study," Washington Examiner, 2026.
  • Heritage Foundation, "Heritage National Security Experts: Never Forget Biden's Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal That Killed 13 Servicemembers," The Heritage Foundation, 2025.

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