WASHINGTON — When former President Donald Trump argues that President Joe Biden botched the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan — a broad point that even some of Biden’s fellow Democrats will concede — he often laments what his campaign says are hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizens trapped in a country ruled by the Taliban.
“For 18 months, we lost nobody in Afghanistan. And then we had that horrible, horrible withdrawal where we lost 13 soldiers, 38 horribly wounded, left Americans behind,” Trump said in remarks after his Super Tuesday victories earlier this month.
“You have Americans right now still behind,” he continued. “Call them hostages, if you like.”
In a video his campaign released last week, Trump repeated the charge.
“We have many American people still living in Afghanistan, probably as hostages,” he said.
But two senior Biden administration national security officials told NBC News that the Taliban is holding two Americans that the U.S. government would like to see released. Other Americans in Afghanistan are there of their own volition, they said.
“Every American who wanted to leave has left,” the first official said. “In fact, we didn’t leave a single person behind. And we are also getting Afghan allies out every month.”
State Department officials said they could not provide an exact figure for how many U.S. citizens are in Afghanistan and have requested assistance in getting out of the country.
“It is impossible to say with certainty how many U.S. citizens are in Afghanistan today,” a State Department spokesperson said. “In the 30 months since our embassy closed, many U.S. citizens departed, returned, and departed again.”
One of the Americans being jailed by the Taliban, Ryan Corbett, started a microfinance company in the country during the war, fled with assistance from the U.S. government in 2021, and then returned in 2022. The harsh conditions he faces, and his deteriorating physical condition, have been…
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