Bipartisan group of lawmakers plan Afghanistan trip in defiance of Pelosi, McCarthy requests not to do so

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Some House members from both sides of the aisle are planning to head to Afghanistan despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy urging their members not to travel to the region, Fox News has learned.

The cohort of House members, both Republicans and Democrats, are either trying to get to Afghanistan or intend to travel there to assist in the evacuation effort of American citizens and others from Kabul, multiple sources have told Fox News.

It was not immediately clear how many members of Congress are traveling or how they are getting there.

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These travel plans come after Pelosi, D-Calif., rebuked two members of Congress – Reps. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., – for taking a rogue trip to Kabul. She sent a letter to her colleagues warning against traveling to the “region during this time of danger.”

“This is deadly serious,” Pelosi said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. “You do not want members to go.”

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McCarthy also urged members of Congress to avoid Afghanistan, arguing that it could interfere with the pressing military evacuation effort.

“They shouldn’t go,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said Wednesday at a separate news conference.

The statements from leadership seemed to have some effect.

At least one member of Congress who intended to travel to Afghanistan reversed course at Pelosi’s behest, Fox has learned.

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The urge to travel to Afghanistan comes amid bipartisan frustration with the Biden Administration’s decision to keep an Aug. 31 troop withdrawal date even though Americans and Afghans are still trying to flee the country on flights out of Kabul. The U.S. is relying on the Taliban to provide some level of safe passage to Americans to the airport where they can be evacuated.