The White House refused to draw further attention to reports President Joe Biden and ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani were unprepared for Afghanistan’s quick collapse and that Biden had encouraged his counterpart in Kabul, Afghanistan, to fix his “perception” problem by selling a military strategy with local political heavyweights.

Biden also challenged Ghani to “project a different picture” than that of a failing war effort against the Taliban, “whether it is true or not.”