Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Foreign Policy Klobuchar blasts Trump’s Taliban explanation: ‘This isn’t a game show’

Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s foreign policy style and cast doubt on the explanation of why peace talks with the Taliban have been put on hold indefinitely.

“To me, this is just no way to conduct foreign policy,” the Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota senator said on CNN’s “State of the Union.“


“Yes, we should be negotiating with the Afghan government, and we should be negotiating with the Taliban to try to end the bloodshed in this country, which has been going on for decades.”

Trump on Saturday said he had intended to hold peace talks involving the Taliban and Afghanistan’s government at Camp David, but that they had been shelved because of a Taliban attack.

“The whole focus of this, of course, is to bring our troops home, which I strongly support,” Klobuchar added.

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“But he didn’t even seem to have an agreement or close to an agreement when he set the summit,” Klobuchar said. “Then the excuse that’s used to end the summit and take it down is the fact that, tragically, an American service member died, as well as other civilians. But then they kept negotiating after that happened, through Saturday, so the whole thing doesn’t quite make sense to me.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that peace negotiations with the Taliban are off indefinitely after the Islamic militia admitted responsibility for a recent attack in which a U.S. soldier died.

Sgt. 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, a paratrooper, was killed in the attack that Trump tweeted last night had also killed 11 other people. The president said the Taliban admitted to the attack in an attempt to build “false leverage.”

The New York Times reported Sunday, citing anonymous officials, that suspension of the talks had happened more so because the Taliban was resisting American terms and plans for the Camp David summit had been rushed.

“This isn’t a game show — these are terrorists,” Klobuchar said. “The way he conducts foreign policy — this reminds me exactly of North Korea. He loves the showmanship. He wants to have that moment but then all the details aren’t done, and then we end up in a worse place on the world stage than we were before.”