White House dismisses Democrats criticism

WASHINGTON: White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back against criticism from members of President Biden’s own party on the rapid deterioration of security in Afghanistan, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday that she would “note and reiterate to anyone who’s a critic that any President has to make difficult choices as commander in chief.”

“It does not mean there aren’t going to be impacts that are gut-wrenching, that are heart-wrenching, that we’re all watching transpire over the last couple of days, but these are the difficult choices you have to make as commander in chief, and that’s the choice he made,” Psaki added.

Psaki told Collins that the Biden administration, “did assess early on, when the President asked for a clear-eyed assessment that there would be impacts, and there would be consequences of making the choice he made,” but acknowledged, as President Biden did during remarks from the East Room Monday, “that this is happened more rapidly than we anticipated here, than anyone anticipated — I think that accounts for members of Congress and people who are on the ground in Afghanistan.”Pressed in a follow up, Psaki told Collings that the President still has faith in his national security team, with whom he “works in lockstep.”