As he spends time away from the White House, President Joe Biden has remained silent since the Taliban conquered Kabul, effectively taking control of Afghanistan.
The president spent the weekend at Camp David, where he was unheard from publicly on Sunday, the day the Taliban took control of Kabul as the United States continued their attempts to safely evacuate U.S. citizens and approved Afghan immigrants.
The only thing listed on Biden’s schedule for Monday is that he will receive the President’s Daily Brief, a meeting closed to the press, though he’s expected to address the nation in the next few days on the subject, either from Camp David or the White House, a senior administration official told CNN. On Sunday, the White House tweeted a photo of the president sitting alone while virtually meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and senior officials to discuss the situation.
TOP BIDEN SPOKESWOMAN, JEN PSAKI, ‘OUT OF THE OFFICE’ AS AFGHANISTAN FALLS TO TALIBAN
The Biden administration has largely relied on the State Department and Defense Department to update the public on the latest developments during the Taliban’s weeklong offensive where they conquered the country, despite the U.S. and NATO investing billions of dollars, two decades, and thousands of lives.
Secretary Antony Blinken appeared on multiple Sunday morning cable news shows in an attempt for damage control, while later in the day, he, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to Politico.
“We can confirm that the safe evacuation of all Embassy personnel is now complete. All Embassy personnel are located on the premises of Hamid Karzai International Airport, whose perimeter is secured by the U.S. Military,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement late Sunday night.
The situation at the airport in Kabul continues to be chaotic, with Afghan nationals trying to leave the country along with U.S. personnel. All commercial flights were suspended on Monday, and there have been reports of a handful of deaths.
Price’s update came shortly after the two departments said they “expanded our security presence to nearly 6,000 troops, with a mission focused solely on facilitating these efforts and will be taking over air traffic control.”
The administration initially deployed troops to help safely move embassy officials on Thursday and directed additional ones to assist.
“Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals,” the joint statement read. “And we will accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Afghans eligible for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas, nearly 2,000 of whom have already arrived in the United States over the past two weeks.”
Biden, who most recently spoke publicly about Afghanistan last Tuesday, will remain at Camp David through this Wednesday, the White House has said.
“Look, we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years,” the president told reporters Tuesday. “We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces. And Afghan leaders have to come together. We lost thousands — lost to death and injury thousands of American personnel. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.”
In their virtual meeting on Sunday, Biden and Harris met with their national security team, according to a White House official, including Blinken, Austin, Milley, CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Ambassador Ross Wilson, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, and other senior officials.
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The Taliban’s success in capturing vast amounts of the country flies in the face of what Biden and his administration have been saying since the announcement of the planned complete withdrawal, which is currently only two weeks away. The administration has repeatedly touted the advantages the Afghan troops have — such as in having more troops, the funding and technology of the U.S., and their own air force, though results have not borne themselves out on the battlefield.
On Saturday, the White House released a statement from the president in which he maintained that “one more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country.”
