It’s little wonder why Biden keeps briskly walking away from the podium after he gives scripted remarks to the press on the Afghan fiasco while taking no questions.
The White House did try to control the situation by having the president sit down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday to discuss the utterly botched and chaotic evacuation efforts in Kabul still unfolding. That didn’t go well either…
Stephanopolous: "We've seen Afghans falling -"
Biden: "That was four days ago, five days ago."It was two days ago. And one has to ask, does it even matter how many days ago it was? pic.twitter.com/HjkgeTlazQ
— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) August 19, 2021
“When you look at what’s happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgement?” Stephanopoulos asked Biden at the start of the segment which led to the questions about the tragic deaths at Kabul International Airport on Monday.
Biden then began blaming the ousted Afghan president for “getting on a plane and taking off for another country,” as well as the US-trained forces which immediately collapsed, before Stephanopoulos pinned him down on the following…
Stephanopolous: “We’ve seen Afghans falling -“
Biden: “That was four days ago, five days ago.”
With a glare in his eyes, Biden appeared to snap and cut the ABC host off mid-question: “No, I..I don;t think it could have been handled in a way that – we’re gonna go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow…” – and he continued to sidestep with frustration and resentment clearly in his voice, fuming at Stephanopoulos even asking the question.
Here’s the fuller clip of that section of the interview:
EXCLUSIVE: Pressed on whether the U.S.'s exit from Afghanistan could have been handled better, Pres. Biden tells @GStephanopoulos, "The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing—I don't know how that happens." https://t.co/mH1AyWI5lb pic.twitter.com/osAwdDQy2L
— ABC News (@ABC) August 18, 2021
It bears pointing out that no, it was not four or five days ago, but a mere two days prior to the interview. At that point details were still coming out as to the identities of the deceased who climbed aboard the C-17 aircraft’s landing gear covers, before tragically falling to their deaths.
At least one among the dead who fell from the departing aircraft was a teenager.
Elsewhere in the interview, Biden fumbled his way through an attempted answer when asked about his earlier in July saying a Taliban takeover of the country “unlikely” and that it was not at all inevitable:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you didn’t put a timeline on it when you said it was highly unlikely. You just said flat out, “It’s highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.”
BIDEN: Yeah. Well, the question was whether or not it w– the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — that somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was gonna just collapse, they were gonna give up. I don’t think anybody anticipated that.
Meanwhile, here’s what the Biden administration’s “getting tough” against US enemies looks like apparently… “a very strongly worded press statement” sent to the Taliban.
The Taliban just survived a 20-year dose-e-doe with the greatest combined military might in the history of the world and we expect them to yield to a "strongly worded press statement" https://t.co/j3NMuLboP9
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) August 18, 2021
But it doesn’t seem anyone is getting the message…
Tense scenes outside the Kabul airport in #Afghanistan. That “very strongly worded press statement” from the UN Security Council appears to have fallen on deaf ears for the #Taliban. pic.twitter.com/ZEHeiJwxE5
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) August 19, 2021
Via Zero Hedge
