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Psaki swats down impeachment chatter and GOP backlash on Kabul: ‘Now is not the time for politics’

Multiple Republicans have called for President Joe Biden to resign

Eric Garcia
Friday 27 August 2021 21:06 BST
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'Now isn't the time for politics': Psaki to Republicans calling for Biden resignation
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki swatted down calls by Republicans for President Joe Biden to resign after an attack in Kabul killed 13 US service members on Thursday.

A reporter asked Ms Psaki about the calls by Republicans for the president to resign.

“The backdrop here is the men and women of the US military deployed on the ground are bravely continuing to implement a mission to save lives on the ground,” she said.

“Yesterday they lost 13 of their own and the president made absolutely clear that we’re going to hunt down, go after and kill the terrorists who are responsible,” she said. “Everyone should be supportive of that.”

When asked if now is not the time for politics, she said “correct.”

The words come after multiple Republicans have criticized Mr Biden. Sen Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential 2024 Republican candidate for president, called for Mr Biden to resign.

“Joe Biden has now overseen the deadliest day for US troops in Afghanistan in over a decade, and the crisis grows worse by the hour,” he said. “We must reject the falsehood peddled by a feckless president that this was the only option for withdrawal.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked at a press conference whether Mr Biden should be impeached or resign.

“If you want to be president of the free world, you have to have the faith, the trust, the confidence, President Biden lost that yesterday,” he said and said, “there will be a day of reckoning.”

Others, such as Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have called for Mr Biden’s impeachment.

Similarly, Mr Graham has called for the president to recognize the anti-Taliban resistance as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Similarly, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who served in the Trump administration, said Mr Biden should resign but that it would leave the United States with President Kamala Harris.

“God help us,” she said.

Former president Donald Trump, whom Mr Biden beat, used the situation in Afghanistan to spread his lie that the election was stolen.

“If the Democrats could fight wars as well as they execute Election Fraud, we would have obliterated all of our many enemies throughout the World, and would have nothing to worry about,” he said in a statement on Friday.

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