Jen Psaki clashes with media over Afghan withdrawal: ‘It’s easy to play backseat’

White House Press Secretary defends Biden’s decisions, saying his options were limited

Press Secretary Jen Psaki has pushed back against criticism of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in a clash with White House reporters.

In a press briefing on Friday, Ms Psaki responded to questions about the handling of the crisis in Afghanistan, and was asked to respond to the comment, posted by Democratic Representative Susan Wild on Twitter, that the evacuation process had been “egregiously mishandled.”

Ms Psaki responded by saying: “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 the commander-in-chief has to make include difficult options.”

She continued: “The option he has chosen … 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 has made.”

Ms Psaki was referring to the attack by Isis-K suicide bombers and gunmen outside Kabul’s airport on Thursday, which killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 US troops, according to officials.

New York Times correspondent Michael Shear followed up by asking “What evidence do you have that there weren’t other choices?” before outlining other hypothetical scenarios that could have played out in the run-up to the withdrawal.

“Look, Mike, I think it’s easy to play backseat ‘let’s look at what could have happened three months, four months ago,’”said Ms Psaki. “No one anticipated, I think including on the outside, that the Afghan government would have fallen at the pace they fell.”

“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. And as a result of that all happening, we saw a chaotic situation just two weeks ago,” she added.