CBS Skips Own Reporter Pressing WH’s John Kirby on Afghan Withdrawal Report

Curtis Houck
September 10th, 2024 1:55 PM

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Monday’s White House press briefing led off with national security spokesman and frequent Karine Jean-Pierre crutch John Kirby defending the Biden-Harris administration’s deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan in light of a House Foreign Affairs Committee report, arguing they’ve done plenty of soul-searching, but feel proud of what happened and want to move on.

Thankfully, a few reporters had some questions about that, including CBS’s Ed O’Keefe. Unfortunately, his bosses didn’t think they were that important as his exchange with Kirby and the wider topic were both ignored from Monday’s CBS Evening News and Tuesday’s CBS Mornings.

 

 

After starting off easy by asking whether the administration would cooperate in any future congressional investigations (to which Kirby said he was unaware of any future probes), Kirby moved to this: “Has anyone from the White House or the broader administration been invited to tomorrow’s gold medal ceremony for the families of the 13 service members?”

Kirby admitted no one from the White House would, but instead the Pentagon would be representative of the regime: “There will be — there will be quite a few from the Department of Defense, both in terms of active duty, admirals and generals and civilian political appointees and high leadership positions that’ll be there.”

This segued in O’Keefe’s simple but biting question about real accountability.

“[G]oing back to sort of accountability and — and after action, was anyone ever held accountable by the President directly for what happened with the withdrawal in Afghanistan, and if not, remind the audience why not,” he asked.

Kirby gave a remarkable answer, twice insisting “[w]have all held ourselves accountable”, adding the first time that they’re particularly proud of “the progress of the withdrawal across the administration and it was a true interagency effort to get those 120,000 people out and to — uh — make sure we removed our diplomats and our military personnel safely.”

“[N]ot everything went according to plan. Nothing ever does. Um — and we mourn the loss of — of those 13 lives at Abbey Gate every single day here. Um — their sacrifice doesn’t — doesn’t — uh — is not forgotten,” Kirby added in quite the understatement.

AFP’s Danny Kemp also brought up Afghanistan and the basic question of whether the withdrawal was a failure:

Voice of America’s Anita Powell brought up the concern that the collapse of Afghanistan has made America less safe (click “expand”):

POWELL: Well, let’s talk about Afghanistan then. Chairman McCaul drew a direct line and countered something you just said, which is you said they helped make us a safer nation. He believes that the withdrawal from Afghanistan — [TO HEINRICH] do you need a minute? He argues that the withdrawal from Afghanistan has in fact made the United States more susceptible to terrorism because of those prisoners released from Bagram. What can you say to the American people to assure them that this administration is trying to keep them safe and how safe are they?

KIRBY: Well, just go on CENTCOM’s website. Look at the press releases that they send every time they take out a leader of ISIS or an al-Qaeda leader. We have proven the case about over the horizon counterterrorism capability to a fairly well. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re sitting back resting fat, dumb, and happy. That’s a kind of capability you have to keep working at and keep trying to improve and we are. Um, I think it’s also important to look at what else is going around the world. You know who — who would have loved for us to be stuck in Afghanistan for another 20 years — is President Putin, President Xi, they would have loved that. But now because we’re not in a ground war in Afghanistan, a ground war for which the original mission had long since been accomplished, we’re able to focus on those more — those more modern and relevant threats to our national security posed by nation states and non-nation states around the world. But as for counterterrorism capability, again, we have proven time and time again that we are able to monitor the threat and deal with the threat sometimes in near real time if need be, not taking it for granted, not saying we don’t always have to keep sharpening it, but believe me, we’re focused on it.

Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich finally got her turn once Jean-Pierre took to the podium and had this bullseye on Harris’s campaign strategy:

When Jean-Pierre shrugged at these questions since she’s not on the Harris campaign, Heinrich replied she asked since “the campaign is not holding regular briefings” or “a Q&A forum like we have here and you’re the spokeswoman for the Biden-Harris administration.”

Heinrich’s last question was even more simple than the ones on Afghanistan: “Does President Biden define Vice President Harris as a progressive Democrat?”

Behold this world salad from Jean-Pierre as she avoided giving Harris any ideological label (and then Heinrich’s follow-up) (click “expand”):

JEAN-PIERRE: Look, the Vice President has been a critical partner — a critical partner to this President. All you got to do is look at the record and what we have been able to do in the past three and a half years — the Biden-Harris administration has been able to do. You think about the economy, you think about healthcare, and you think about these really important — uh — generation changing legislation that are now laws, obviously. I just talked about beating Big Farmer [sic]. That’s important. That was the Inflation Reduction Act that only Democrats voted for now, Republicans want to repeal. They want to take that away — take that away — taking away lowering costs for the American people. And so — uh — to be clear, lowering costs on — on medical care and — and pharmaceutical drugs and also energy bills — right — that’s two really big parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. The President — the President is not going to be labeling the Vice President. She has her policies that she is — obviously, that he’s in line with that they — that she has put forth in the past week or so. He supports her. Uh — he believes in her leadership, and that’s what I can share with you.

HEINRICH: So, we allowing for a contrast with Trump, but not a contrast with other Democrats? Because Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

HEINRICH: — said that he still views her as a progressive Democrat and said that she’s, in fact, not abandoning her ideals but making a pragmatic play toward the center to win the election and that sends a chill down the spine of some people who might be in the middle or to the center right —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

HEINRICH: — considering her and when she’s been trying to position herself as —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

HEINRICH: — a more moderate figure now than she was in 2020. Where — where does she stand exactly?

JEAN-PIERRE: So, first of all, the senator is going to speak for himself. That’s for him to speak to. I’m not gonna get into a I agree or disagree with him. What I can tell you is this President believes in her leadership and believes in her bold policy agenda. That is something that the President is in line with her on, right? And we’re talking about strength in the middle class. That’s what we believe her — her bold policy agenda continues to do, and that’s important. You hear the President talking about building a — building an economy from the bottom up but allow and strengthening the middle class. We’re in line. More economic opportunity. The President wants to see that. And we’re thinking — we’re talking about the tax cuts for working people, fighting corporate pricing guz — gouging, lowering costs, having the wealthy pay their fair share. We’re in line. We’re in line with — uh — with what the Vice President is putting forth — her bold policy agenda to make sure that we do not leave people behind. I’m not going to stand here and label the Vice President. The senator has every right to say whatever he wants to say. What I can say is the President agrees with her bold policy agenda and — and her leadership.

Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence closed things out with the decline in manufacturing jobs:

To see the relevant transcript from the September 10 briefing (including one from NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell about the White House’s pivot from saying “Biden administration” when talking about itself to “Biden-Harris administration”), click here.

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