White House press secretary Jen Psaki tamped down expectations Tuesday about a meeting with President Joe Biden and Afghan refugees.
Before departing the White House to survey Hurricane Ida’s fallout in New York and New Jersey, Biden suggested to reporters that he’s “sure” he will soon meet with some of the Afghan refugees evacuated by the United States between Aug. 14 and Aug. 31.
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“Well, they’re all over the country,” the president responded when asked if he has specific plans to meet with any of the more than 120,000 people evacuated after the Taliban recaptured Kabul. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing some of them.”
Asked if he plans to meet Afghan refugees, President Biden: “They are all over the country. I’m sure I will be seeing some of them”. pic.twitter.com/lMJCXogkRw
— Raquel Krähenbühl (@Rkrahenbuhl) September 7, 2021
“He also said that they’re all over the country right now,” Psaki countered when pressed by reporters traveling on Air Force One for clarification on the president’s comments. “I would remind you that they’ve only come to the country over the last couple of weeks. So, yes, he certainly looks forward to at some point, but that is not planned in this particular moment. They’re all coming to the United States, many of them some of them for the first time, and we’re going to let them adjust with their families.”
Since Aug. 14, the U.S. and its allies, aided by the Taliban, conducted a humanitarian evacuation of Special Immigrant Visa applicants, at-risk Afghan nationals, and any Americans and third-country nationals who wanted to leave Afghanistan. Psaki told reporters Tuesday that just under 100 Americans remain there.
“We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety,” Biden said in national remarks marking the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan on Aug. 31. “That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation — no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.”
Biden also noted in that speech that the “Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans.”
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“We don’t take them by their word alone but by their actions,” he continued. “We have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.”
