NB - To go along with two horrendously bad Pentagon press briefings and another at the State Department, the White House joined in Monday afternoon with another shellacking at the hands of the press corps on Afghanistan.
For this installment, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Press Secretary Jen Psaki took fire from all angles, ranging from Fox News to NPR.
Led by Fox’s Peter Doocy and Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann, Team Biden was grilled about whether Americans have been “stranded” by their own government, whether Americans outside Kabul will be rescued, and how can the U.S. take to heart anything that emanates from the Taliban.
Sullivan first stepped to the plate and, after ducking introductory questions from CBS’s Nancy Cordes, CNN’s Phil Mattingly, and two others, NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe fired off a heater about “why didn't the administration prepare the American public” for the “rough” and “very chaotic scenes” inside Afghanistan if such images of death and heartbreak were inevitable, regardless of when the U.S. withdrew.
Fast-forward a few minutes to the one-two punch of Doocy and Wegmann, which featured the latter telling Sullivan that Biden “has criticized his predecessor,” “the Afghan army,” and “the Afghan government for all of their failures,” but not the Taliban. Sullivan responded to this humdinger by insisting Biden “has been very clear about his views of the Taliban” in not trusting them (even though they’ve said they need their help to get Americans and Afghan allies out of their clutches).
[SNIP]
They really didn't expect such incoming. After all, they're democrats. Bless Their Hearts.
