Democratic candidate Tim Ryan looked pretty ill-prepared on his own country's history when at the first of his party's presidential debates rival Tulsi Gabbard corrected his inaccurate claim that the Taliban carried out 9/11.

Speaking at the Democratic presidential debate in Miami on Wednesday, Ohio Representative Ryan was arguing that the US should have troops in Afghanistan when he made a major clanger in apparently confusing the Taliban with Al-Qaeda.

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On the issue of US troop deployments in Afghanistan, Hawaii Congresswoman Gabbard said America can’t keep soldiers out there “thinking that we are somehow going to squash this Taliban, that has been there, that every other country has tried and failed [to beat].”

“When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings,” Ryan responded, to which Gabbard pointed out: “The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11, Al-Qaeda did.”

Watch the 5 minutes that have people talking Tulsi!A soldier's truth about the establishment war machine driving US foreign policy https://t.co/JC0MqYSEmT#DemDebate - #TULSI2020pic.twitter.com/kJnp3gRfKq — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) June 27, 2019

Ryan went on to try to cover his error by saying that the Taliban had protected those who plotted against the US, to which Tulsi retorted, “You know who’s protecting Al-Qaeda right now? Saudi Arabia.”

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