CNN’s Brianna Keilar Grills Jake Sullivan on Biden’s Misleading Afghanistan Claims

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar confronted Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday morning over claims President Joe Biden made on Friday in regards to the Afghanistan withdrawal, questioning aloud why the president was “deceptive together with his phrases.”

Amid the evacuation disaster in Afghanistan following the federal government’s collapse and the Taliban’s return to energy, the president promised during a Friday press conference to evacuate all Americans from the country whereas defending the chaotic withdrawal from the nation.

Biden, at one level, insisted that his administration has seen “no indication” that People “haven’t been capable of get by the [Kabul] airport,” including that the U.S. made an settlement with the Taliban for protected passage. A number of news shops, nonetheless, quickly fact-checked the president’s comments, noting that stories contradict his assertions—and the U.S. embassy in Kabul even warned Americans within the space that “United States authorities can’t guarantee protected passage to the Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport.”

In the identical press convention, Biden additionally claimed that al Qaeda is “gone” from Afghanistan, despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council determined in June that the fear group nonetheless has a presence in practically half of the Afghanistan provinces and the Department of Defense recently reported that “the Taliban continued to keep up its relationship with al Qaeda, offering protected haven for the terrorist group in Afghanistan.”

Replaying Biden’s remarks throughout her interview with Sullivan on CNN’s State of the Union, Keilar pressed him to clarify the president’s narrative.

“We all know that’s not true,” she declared. “We all know there are various situations the place that has not been true. And the Pentagon has acknowledged that as properly. He additionally mentioned that al Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan. However, after all, from the U.N., from the Joint Chiefs, we all know that can be unfaithful. Why is he deceptive together with his phrases right here?”

With regard to Biden’s remark about al Qaeda, Sullivan mentioned that the intelligence group has mentioned they don’t imagine the fear group “characterize a risk to the US homeland.” He mentioned Biden was referring to this present risk evaluation, including that the president “clearly mentioned” that al Qaeda might “sooner or later” pose a risk to the U.S.

Keilar, in the meantime, pushed Sullivan to reply to the concept that People weren’t having any issues getting by the Taliban—and he acknowledged the problems in evacuating Americans, largely chalking them as much as logistics.

“What the president has persistently directed his workforce to do, and what he has defined, in reality, in that very press convention, is that if there are any points with the motion of People by the town, we now have handled these instances one after the other and resolved them, when that data is introduced to us,” he mentioned.

“There’s one other problem, although, Brianna, which your workforce has reported on fairly successfully, which is People who then get to the airport have had a tough time getting inside due to the very giant crowds of individuals outdoors,” Sullivan concluded. “That could be a logistical problem we’ve been engaged on over the course of the previous 72 hours. We now imagine we now have various strategies of getting People into the airport. That’s what we’re executing as we communicate.”