Trump's Confusing Debate Comment About 'Abdul' Has A Strange, Shifting Backstory

During a strange moment in Tuesday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump made a passing reference to “Abdul” — no last name — and said that as president, he sent a picture of Abdul’s own house to him as a threat.

But this is Donald Trump, so of course, there’s a strange history to the claim. The story has changed over the years, from an offhand comment to a viral claim about threatening a Taliban leader with a satellite photo.

The “Abdul” in question is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Baradar, a Taliban official and co-founder of the movement that now controls Afghanistan, was the United States’ negotiating partner when the Trump administration — led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad — agreed to a February 2020 deal to withdraw from the country. The deal, known as the Doha Agreement, has been criticized for not containing enforcement mechanisms to hold the Taliban accountable to its terms.

Baradar was languishing in a Pakistani jail before 2018 — when the United States and “high-level negotiations” were credited with his release. Contrary to Trump’s claim, he’s never been the “head” of the Taliban.

Trump failed to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan during his presidency, but his successor Joe Biden did. The withdrawal was infamously marked by a lone ISIS-K suicide bomber who killed 13 American service members and roughly 170 Afghans at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021.

During Trump’s presidency, 45 American combat deaths were reported in Afghanistan. In the 18-month period between the signing of the Doha Agreement and the airport suicide bombing, no U.S. service members were killed in combat in Afghanistan. Trump has falsely implied this whole