Jen Psaki nailed it. Finally, a response that strongly defends the president on Afghanistan. This is long overdue in this forum.
Jen Psaki schools a naive reporter again
An ill-prepared naive reporter attempted to equate the Ukraine crisis with Afghanistan. The exchange was epic as Jen Psaki justifiably ridiculed her.
“The president has frequently talked about getting out of Afghanistan as a major event,” the naive reporter said. “It has impacted his polling. This is a current event that is underway. The question is, what does the administration say to critics who are looking at these two events and questioning this administration’s foreign policy approach?”
Jen Psaki went back and forth with the reporter. She tried to get the reporter to be specific about who is questioning the president’s foreign policy. Ironically, it took her a while to come up with a name. She finally chose Mitch McConnell.
Psaki then went on to lay waste to her knowledge and illustrated her shallowness. Her statement likely applied to much of the U.S. mainstream media also.
“Well, here’s what I would say to Mr. McConnell. The president ended a 20-year war in Afghanistan, a war that had cost us thousands of American lives, billions, trillions of dollars, and was a failed enterprise after 20 years. He was the first president to do that after many of his predecessors failed to take exactly that step. We knew it would be complicated. We knew it would be challenging. He had the courage to get our troops out of there and end a 20-year war. This is entirely different because we are not ending a 20-year war. We are trying to prevent war here. We are trying to keep American citizens safe in Ukraine by encouraging them to depart, by providing them information about what the security circumstances are on the ground. And I think it’s important for the American public to understand the significant differences between these different scenarios.”
Maybe the mainstream media should attempt to do their job by informing Americans in an educated fashion. It almost seems like the defense industrial complex writes the scripts for the mainstream media.