A key Democrat on Capitol Hill argues there is a chance for President Joe Biden to turn around critics from both parties who say he has botched the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Spectrum News NY1 that “over the long run, Biden will be judged by: 'Did we get our people home?'”

He said it would be a failure if people are left behind amid the U.S. exit, including America's Afghan allies.

“We cannot leave them behind ... because that’s keeping our word," he said.

Lawmakers in Washington are looking for answers after the fast collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Meeks has invited Secretary of State Antony Blinken to face questions from his committee about the U.S. exit. Scheduling is underway, Meeks indicated.

The Queens-area congressman said he wants to know why the Taliban was able to advance as quickly as it did. He also wants to ask why the Kabul airport wasn’t better secured.

“It could have been done better. There's no question about that,” Meeks said of the U.S. withdrawal.

With the U.S. departure, several lawmakers are sounding the alarm about the return of Taliban rule, including Rep. John Katko, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.

“Now we're going to go back to a country that embraces al-Qaida, that embraces ISIS-type terrorist groups,” he said.

Katko, who represents upstate New York, indicated he is worried about what the U.S. pullout means for preventing further terrorist activity.

“We're in a bit of a no man's land again, because we don't have that intelligent matrix right now, because we don't have boots on the ground,” he said. “That’s a real concern.”

Asked about the implications of a power vacuum in Afghanistan, Meeks said the Taliban has got “to know that if there is any collaborating or if these terrorist groups start to meet and organize there, we will do exactly what we did early on, and that is come in and wipe them out.”

Meeks indicated he would, in such a case, support authorizing the use of military force again.

“We would go in there and do exactly what we did before and accomplish that mission, but not stay to do country-building,”