The Afghanistan exit is the new ‘gotcha’ to attack President Joe Biden, even though he shares that one common policy with his predecessor, Donald Trump. Since the mass evacuations began on Aug. 14, approximately 116,700 people have been airlifted out of Afghanistan, according to sources, and about 122,300 people have been evacuated since the end of July, including about 5,500 U.S. citizens and their families.
Still, Fox News’s Peter Doocy suggested that Americans are being stranded in Afghanistan while Americans, as well as at-risk Afghans, were being evacuated.
And let’s be honest here; no exit would have gone smoothly after the U.S. has been in the region for twenty years. Further, former President Donald Trump released 5,000 Taliban prisoners before he left office, so it’s a messy situation.
Doocy told White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday that the criticism from the media isn’t over leaving Afghanistan, “it’s the way that he has ordered it to happen.” Doocy said that troops were pulled “before getting the Americans that are now stranded.”
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Psaki wasn’t having it, and she called the Fox News reporter out over his loaded question. “First of all, I think it’s irresponsible to say ‘Americans are stranded.’ They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home,” she said. “We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans, to get them home if they want to return.”
“‘There are no Americans stranded’ is the White House’s official position on what’s happening in Afghanistan right now?” Doocy asked.
“I’m just calling you out for saying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home, we are going to bring them home and I think that’s important for the American public to hear and understand,” Psaki shot back.
Watch:
“I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are ‘stranded'” — Jen Psaki to Peter Doocy pic.twitter.com/0ZwZ8BkZ19
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 23, 2021
It wasn’t all that long ago that it would be unheard of for a former president to attack his successor during a crisis, but that’s what Donald Trump has done. Doocy is just playing to the twice-impeached one-term president’s base to rile them up.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
