The Biden White House called a lid minutes after the president’s Friday press conference on the situation in Afghanistan as an unknown number of Americans remain stranded in the country.
Kathryn Watson, White House reporter for CBS News, reported the lid shortly after 2:30 p.m. Eastern, only minutes following the completion of President Biden’s press conference. Biden is not traveling back to Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday, as previously planned:
Biden famously failed to answer questions about the U.S.-backed Afghan government’s fall to the Taliban over the last week, as he was vacationing at Camp David, only to return to the White House on Monday for a brief address on the situation. He returned to his vacation spot that same day.
As Breitbart News reported this week, Biden took at least nine Marine One flights back and forth from vacation spots over the last three weeks as he struggled to carry on with his scheduled vacation amid the crisis.
The Biden White House called a lid at 3:36 p.m. Eastern on Thursday as well:
During Friday’s press conference, Biden claimed to be in “constant contact with the Taliban” but said he could not promise that the evacuations will come “without risk of loss” despite his assertion that his administration warned the Taliban that any disruption of U.S. operations at the airport will be met with “swift and forceful response.”