When even The New York Times is dunking on the White House, you know things are bad for the flailing Biden administration. During a testy exchange with the liberal paper’s correspondent on Friday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki struggled to invent straw-men arguments to explain away the President’s disastrous incompetence on the Afghanistan withdrawal.
The tussle between Shear and Psaki was sparked by a prior question from Washington Post correspondent Sean Sullivan, who pressed: “I know earlier you addressed some the Republican criticism of the President, but what is your message, what is the White House’s message to Democrats who have expressed substantive concerns about the withdrawal from Afghanistan?”
Psaki initially tried to deflect by demanding a “specific” criticism. Sullivan obliged:
I mean, Congresswoman Susan Wild [D-PA], for example, has said that, you know, “It’s clear to me say that we could not continue to put American service members in danger for an unwinnable war but I also believe that the evacuation process appears to have be egregiously mishandled.” So what’s your response to something like that?
After having requested a direct quote to respond to, Psaki declared: “Look, I don’t have any direct response to any member of Congress.” She then launched into a rant in which she created phony alternative options on Afghanistan designed to make the White House’s abysmal failure look like the best possible choice:
But what I will say is that it is easy to throw stones or be a critic from the outside. It is harder to be in the arena and make difficult decisions. And the decisions that a commander-in-chief has to make include among difficult options, right? These were the options. You send tens of thousands of more troops in Afghanistan to potentially lose their lives, that’s an option. Some have called – some support that. That’s their prerogative. You pull out and you don’t put anyone at risk, you don’t put troops at risk, and you don’t evacuate more than 105,000 people, that’s another option.
As she finished her screed, Shear jumped in and wasn’t buying it: “Jen, apologies to my colleagues, but like, you guys have said repeatedly – presented this idea that there were only two choices. What evidence do you have that there weren’t other choices that could have been made?” Psaki defensively countered: “What was – well, what’s the other choice anyone is offering?”
Shear argued:
Well, for example, the President could have said to the Ghani government in May, that we’re gonna start a mass evacuation of all of the U.S. personnel, we’re gonna put out an announcement that says, you know, “We advise all of our Afghan allies who worked with us to start evacuating as well”....And I’m sure there’s ten other options that I haven’t thought of that – so why do you present it as these being the only two options?
“There are of course other options, but there are consequences to every option. That is my point,” Psaki stammered. She then claimed that in the example Shear outlined “what would have happened in all likelihood, the threat on U.S. forces would have increased at that point in time.” Shear promptly fact checked her assertion: “But you would have been operating in a capital that wasn’t overrun by the Taliban at that point.” Psaki pushed back: “How do you know that?” Shear logically pointed out that “the Taliban wasn’t near Kabul at that point” in May.
An exasperated Psaki finally just dismissed the entire line of questioning: “Look, Mike, I think it’s easy to play backseat, let’s look at what could have happened three, four months ago.”
Obvious, legitimate questions about Biden’s cascading foreign policy failures from generally friendly media outlets have become too much of challenge for administration flacks like Psaki to handle.
Here is a transcript of the August 27 exchange during the White House press briefing:
2:20 PM ET
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SEAN SULLIVAN [WASHINGTON POST]: And just to follow up on one thing. I know earlier you addressed some the Republican criticism of the President, but what is your message, what is the White House’s message to Democrats who have expressed substantive concerns about the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Do you have any message to them or response to some of their criticism?
JEN PSAKI: Is there a specific piece?
SULLIVAN: I mean, Congresswoman Susan Wild, for example, has said that, you know, “It’s clear to me say that we could not continue to put American service members in danger for an unwinnable war but I also believe that the evacuation process appears to have be egregiously mishandled.” So what’s your response to something like that?
PSAKI: Look, I don’t have any direct response to any member of Congress. But what I will say is that it is easy to throw stones or be a critic from the outside. It is harder to be in the arena and make difficult decisions. And the decisions that a commander-in-chief has to make include among difficult options, right? These were the options. You send tens of thousands of more troops in Afghanistan to potentially lose their lives, that’s an option. Some have called – some support that. That’s their prerogative. You pull out and you don’t put anyone at risk, you don’t put troops at risk, and you don’t evacuate more than 105,000 people, that’s another option. The option that he has chosen, in coordination and based on the recommendations with his military commanders and advisers on the ground, is to implement an evacuation that has saved the lives potentially of more than 105,000 people, certainly at risk of the men and women who are serving in the military, as we saw by the events of yesterday. That’s the choice he’s made.
MICHAEL SHEAR [NEW YORK TIMES]: Jen – Jen, apologies to my colleagues, but like, you guys have said repeatedly – presented this idea that there were only two choices. What evidence do you have that there weren’t other choices that could have been made? I mean –
PSAKI: What was – well, what’s the other choice anyone is offering?
SHEAR: Well, for example...
PSAKI: Go ahead.
SHEAR: ...the President could have said to the Ghani government in May, that we’re gonna start a mass evacuation of all of the U.S. personnel, we’re gonna put out an announcement that says, you know, “We advise all of our Afghan allies who worked with us to start evacuating as well.” It would have been a show of no confidence in the Ghani government, there might have been other repercussions, I’m not suggesting that’s the right way to have gone, I don’t know, but it is another option. And I’m sure there’s ten other options that I haven’t thought of that – so why do you present it as these being the only two options?
PSAKI: There are of course other options, but there are consequences to every option. That is my point. So let’s take your example. If we had evacuated and moved in C-17s, 6,000 troops, I think that’s what you’re suggesting, and implemented this evacuation in May, you know what would have happened in all likelihood, the threat on U.S. forces would have increased at that point in time. ISIS-K –
SHEAR: But you would have been operating in a capital that wasn’t overrun by the Taliban at that point.
PSAKI: How do you know that?
SHEAR: Well, the Taliban wasn’t near Kabul at that point.
PSAKI: Look, Mike, I think it’s easy to play backseat, let’s look at what could have happened three, four months ago. I think we’ve been clear on a couple of things, I will just say. No one anticipated, I think including on the outside, that the Afghan government would have fallen at the pace they fell, and the President and members of our national security team have spoken to that as well. We didn’t anticipate the Afghan national security forces would have folded as they did, we didn’t anticipate that, and as a result of that all happening, we saw a chaotic situation just two weeks ago. So you can always – my point in response to the question is that there are consequences to any of these difficult choices and decisions. That’s the – that is what faces you as commander-in-chief. And that was the larger point I was trying to make.
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