House Armed Services Chair Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., opened Wednesday’s hearing on Afghanistan with a defense of Biden for ending America’s longest war -- and with a preemptive strike on the panel’s Republicans, who he said would spend the day trying to get the military leaders to contradict the commander in chief.

"The option of keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in a peaceful and stable environment did not exist," Smith said, opening the hearing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, face a second day of questions from congressional lawmakers on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

Ranking Republican member Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said he "could not disagree more" with Smith and called Biden "delusional" before the leaders gave their opening testimonies.

The nation's top military leaders are back on Capitol Hill at 9:30 a.m. before the House Armed Services Committee -- where Republicans are expected to seize on their comments from Tuesday that they recommended Biden keep a residual force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, appearing to contradict the president’s comments to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, candidly admitted in a Senate hearing on Tuesday -- their first appearance before lawmakers since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan -- that they had recommended the U.S. keep a small troop presence there, with Milley openly advising presidents not to assign complete withdrawal dates without conditions.

In the six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan as "a strategic failure" and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some "uncomfortable truths" about the two-decade U.S. military mission there. House lawmakers are expected to follow up on the revelations on Wednesday.

After nearly six hours of testimonies and tough questions, the Senate Armed Services Committee has adjourned its hearing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command -- their first since the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Senators sunk into Milley and McKenzie saying they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops behind as a residual force in Afghanistan ahead of the chaotic evacuation effort. Several GOP senators called on the leaders to resign, to which Milley offered a powerful rebuttal.

"It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken," Milley said. "My dad didn't get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, during the hearing, defended Biden's interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in which the president said the views of his advisers were "split," saying, “There was no one who said, 'Five years from now, we could have 2,500 troops, and that would be sustainable.'”

"That was not a decision the president was going to make," Psaki added. "Ultimately, it's up to the commander in chief to make a decision. He made a decision it was time to end a 20-year war.”

It's been nearly one month since Biden withdrew all U.S. troops, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the discrepancy between President Biden telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in August that commanders were "split" and Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and head of CENTCOM Gen. Frank McKenzie telling senators Tuesday they recommended keeping 2,500 troops.

“There was a range of viewpoints, as was evidenced by their testimony today, that were presented to the president, that were presented to the national security team, as would be expected, as he asks for," Psaki said, after quoting the ABC News transcript.

"Again, I'm not going to get into specific details of who recommended what, but I can, I would reiterate a little bit of what I conveyed before, which is that there were recommendations made by a range of his advisors, something he welcomed, something he asked them to come to him clear-eyed about, to give him candid advice," Psaki said later on.

"What is also clear, though -- and I'd also note again what Secretary Austin said today, is that was not going to be a sustainable, over the long-term, troop presence. We were always going to look at escalating the numbers, at potentially going back to war with the Taliban, at risking casualties," she reiterated.