Peter Baker of the NY Times and MSNBC has fact-checked some of Joe Biden’s more egregious lies from his press conference yesterday. Perhaps the NY Times has decided to look somewhat credible. ABC News and CNN are also reporting fairly honestly.
It’s shocking.
What happens when the Democrat media actually starts reporting the truth about their own president, one they helped get elected? It sounds like they are getting ready to dump him. In the least, they won’t cover for him over Afghanistan. Covering him for everything else, including the open borders, making us energy-dependent on our enemies, destroying the economy, are all fine, but not Afghanistan.
It’s not only Baker. It’s all the king’s men, including Price, Kirby, Austin. The other day it was Milley.
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
The president made misleading or false claims about the reaction of allies to the withdrawal, the presence of Al Qaeda, and conditions for Americans traveling to the Kabul airport, reports Baker.
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Here’s a fact-check of the president’s remarks, Baker wrote.
WHAT MR. BIDEN SAID
“I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world.”
This is misleading. While leaders of countries allied with the United States have been hesitant to publicly criticize the withdrawal, some members of their governments have not minced words in questioning American leadership and credibility.
[The article then went on to quote German, British, and Latvian leaders saying the opposite, and the comments were strong.]
WHAT MR. BIDEN SAID
“What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as, as well as getting Osama bin Laden, and we did.”
False. Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan has certainly been reduced since the United States invaded, but Mr. Biden is wrong to say that the terrorist group is no longer in the country.
A United Nations Security Council report released in June estimated that Al Qaeda still had a presence in at least 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a report released on Wednesday that “the Taliban continued to maintain its relationship with Al Qaeda, providing safe haven for the terrorist group in Afghanistan.”
After Mr. Biden spoke, John F. Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed in a news conference that Al Qaeda had a presence in Afghanistan.
[In other words, Kirby contradicted Biden too.]
WHAT MR. BIDEN SAID
“We have no indication that they haven’t been able to get — in Kabul — through the airport. We’ve made an agreement with the, with the Taliban. Thus far, they’ve allowed them to go through. It’s in their interest for them to go through. So, we know of no circumstance where American citizens are — carrying an American passport — are trying to get through to the airport.”
This is misleading. Reports from Afghanistan contradict this statement, and other government officials have been more cautious when describing the conditions for American citizens traveling to the airport.
The United States Embassy in Kabul sent a security alert on Wednesday warning American citizens, legal residents, and their families that the “United States government cannot ensure safe passage to the Hamid Karzai International Airport.”
Asked about Mr. Biden’s claim that no American had been denied access to the airport, Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department, said in a news conference on Friday that the department “has received only a small number of reports from American citizens that their access has been impeded in some way, that they have faced any sort of hardship or resistance, getting to the airport.”
Mr. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, also said in the news conference that he was aware of “sporadic reports of some Americans not being able to get through checkpoints,” but that they were able to get through “by and large.”
[In other words, Price and Kirby contradicted ole Joe.]
Politico reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told Congress on Friday that some Americans trying to leave Afghanistan had been harassed and beaten by Taliban fighters.
[Austin contradicted Joe.]
An unnamed American resident in Afghanistan told ABC News that he had witnessed people holding U.S. passports not being allowed through Taliban checkpoints. Clarissa Ward, a CNN reporter in Kabul, said after Mr. Biden’s remarks that she had difficulty reaching the airport.
“Working how to get to this airport is like a Rubik’s Cube,” Ms. Ward said on CNN on Friday. “Anyone who says that any American can get in here is — yes, I mean, technically, it’s possible. But it’s extremely difficult, and it is dangerous.”
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