What was the Contingency and Crisis Response bureau? Examining the Trump-era proposal

Shortly after the Taliban seized control in Afghanistan, Fox News hosts and other media claimed that President Joe Biden hamstrung U.S. ability to evacuate Americans from crises overseas by dismantling a Trump-era program.

The Biden administration said the Contingency and Crisis Response bureau, as the relatively obscure program was called, never existed in a functioning capacity — only that there were plans for it drawn up in the final months of the Trump presidency, and that the Biden team scrapped those plans because the agency already had the same capabilities.

Little is known outside the government about the proposed bureau. But the narrative that emerged on Fox News and other media outlets left a misleading impression: that Biden’s State Department had axed a unique, fully operational program meant to oversee all evacuations just weeks before the Taliban’s takeover.

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