Joe Biden finally gave his big Afghanistan presser this afternoon. Arriving five hours late for the event, the President took the stage. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over with his pace of speaking obviously labored as he began to robotically read the teleprompter.
What then transpired was one of the most insulting, tone-deaf spectacles Iâve ever seen from a president. Instead of getting right into the crisis in Afghanistan, Biden inexcusably began the presser by plugging his âBuild Back Betterâ agenda.
No, Iâm not kidding. It was absolutely surreal.
Biden: "Before I update you on the meeting that I had with the leaders of the G-7 earlier today, I want to say a word about the progress we're making on the Build Back Better agenda here at home…"
I think he meant how his #BuildBackBetter agenda is actually for the Taliban…. pic.twitter.com/mUu4S4mMj5
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 24, 2021
Biden would go on to spend minutes talking about the âclimate crisisâ and bragging about Democrats passing a âvoting rightsâ bill (that will die in the Senate). Before he even mentioned the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan, he praised Nancy Pelosi for her work on the budget bill and claimed that he had produced 4 million jobs. It was disgustingly disconnected from reality.
Later, Biden would finally move to the issue of the day. At that point, he lied about todayâs call with the G7 leaders, claiming they were supportive and standing shoulder to shoulder with him on his withdrawal from Afghanistan. Thatâs contrary to public reports that the Brits and Germans are furious at what is going on and are begging us to extend the timeline because they canât get everyone out in time.
Here were Bidenâs comments on that matter.
And we had a productivediscussion. There werestrong agreement amongthe leaders about bothabout evacuation missionunderway, as well as theneed to coordinate ourapproach to theAfghanistan as we moveforward first onevacuation, we agree thatwe will continue to closeour close cooperation toget people out asefficiently, as safely aspossible. We are currentlyon a pace to finish byAugust 30. The soonerwe can finish, the better.Each day of operationsbrings added risk to ourtroopsâŠ.
âŠAt the same time, werenewed ourhumanitarian commitmentto the Afghan people andsupported a proposal bythe Secretary GeneralGRA, terrorist of theUnited Nations, led aninternational responsewith Unfetteredhumanitarian access inAfghanistan. Third, wetalked about our mutualobligation to supportrefugees and evacueescurrently fleeingAfghanistan. The UnitedStates will be a leader inthese efforts, and weâlllook to the internationalcommunity and to ourpartners do the same.Weâre already seeing ourallies commitment.Theyâre bringing to theircountries.
The gaslighting followed a pattern of Biden doing the same over the last several weeks. He continues to act as if everything is going well, reciting his talking points. In fact, much of todayâs speech was lifted from the speech he gave a week ago. He blamed Trump, he talked about killing Osama Bin Laden, and he insisted that our allies were absolutely fine with everything occurring. It was like Groundhog Day.