Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was accused of rooting for the Taliban on Monday after she tweeted that the extremist group that has overthrown Afghanistan was “building back better.”
“The Taliban are the only people building back better,” she tweeted in a swipe at President Joe Biden in reference to his economic recovery plan.
Taliban insurgents seized control of much of Afghanistan over the past week, including Kabul, prompting a mass exodus of government officials, U.S. embassy personnel and at-risk Afghans, including journalists, translators and human rights activists.
There are grave concerns the Taliban will roll back basic human and democratic rights, especially for women, and oversee a return to the extremist Islamic rule that Afghans lived under from 1996 to 2001.
Boebert, a major cheerleader for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election lies, has faced scrutiny over her role in inspiring the violent insurrection led by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Her critics slammed her for the Taliban-friendly quip after she helped foment a domestic terrorism incident.
They also recirculated a notable February tweet in which Boebert called out Biden for delaying the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan: “We need to end the endless wars,” she said at the time.
See other examples of the Twitter backlash below.