Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown warned voters that a second term for President Joe Biden would result in more American service members killed and wounded like he was in Afghanistan, sharing his story in a moving speech to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
Brown won the nomination to the Senate for his state after receiving an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, to whom he enthusiastically returned the favor during his speech. He is facing incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) in the November legislative election.
Brown offered a brief speech in which he introduced himself and explained his urgency to ensure that Biden – whose policies led to return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan – did not remain in power another four years.
Watch video:
“On September 4, 2008, my Humvee ran over a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The explosion left me drenched in diesel and burning alive,” he recalled. “As I neared death, I felt the flames being smothered and heard a voice say sir, ‘I’ve got you.’”
“I served you as a soldier and I want to serve you again,” Brown offered to the people of Nevada.
Brown’s encounter with an improvised explosive device (IED) while en route to Helmand province, Afghanistan, killed one of the five men in his unit and left him and three others severely injured. Brown pointed to the visible burn marks on his face and warned that Biden’s poor foreign policy would similarly affect an untold number of American troops.
“Look at my face,” he urged the audience. “This is the high cost of war. If Joe Biden stays in office, more service members will pay this price.”
“He has brought our nation humiliation, defeat, and to the brink of more war,” Brown asserted. “I’ve been through the fire. President Trump has been through the fire, but hope has not been extinguished, it has been reignited.”
WATCH — Lee Zeldin on Donald Trump’s Historic Appearance on First Night of RNC 2024:
Brown’s perspective on Biden’s foreign policy is of particular note given of his personal knowledge of the Afghan War, arguably Biden’s single-most humiliating foreign policy failure. Prior to Biden’s inauguration, Trump had negotiated an organized withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, sending then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Doha, Qatar, for extensive talks with the Taliban. The agreements Trump mediated would have seen American troops leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, in exchange for the Taliban agreeing not to attack American forces and to cut ties with al-Qaeda and similar jihadist groups. A month before that deadline, Biden abruptly announced he would break the deal and extend the 20-year-old war, incongruously announcing the new policy as a “withdrawal.”
WATCH — CNN’s King: “Donald Trump Is in Command” the Numbers Are Getting Worse for Biden:
The Taliban responded to the violation of the agreement by launching a campaign to restore its position as the governing body of the country. While Biden had planned to withdraw by September 11 of that year — the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. homeland — American troops were forced to evacuate when Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15. The fall of the U.S.-backed government caused a wave of violence and chaos that resulted in a massive jihadist bombing, killing dozens including 13 American service members.
The Taliban currently governs all of Afghanistan as the “Islamic Emirate” with no significant challenge to its power. In May, the government watchdog Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed in a report that the Biden administration had paid the Taliban almost $11 million since the fall of Kabul in taxes and other fees.