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Jen Psaki to scrub new book after whitewashing Biden show of disrespect for fallen soldiers

May 13, 2024 | | Print Article

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki got caught red-handed in a falsehood she printed in her new book, claiming that President Biden never looked at his watch during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The incident occurred at the ceremony honoring the 13 soldiers killed during the explosion at the Abbey Gate base in Kabul during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as the Taliban took control of the country in 2021. Biden was criticized for looking at his watch three times during the ceremony. Officials at the time tried to claim he only checked his watch after the ceremony but video evidence showed that was not the case. Gold Star families also claimed he looked at his watch during the event and were incensed over it.

In Psaki’s new book “Say More,” the MSNBC host claimed that “the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended. Moments later, he and the First Lady headed toward their car.” Axios called her out for the embarrassing lie on Monday and she is now reportedly altering the passage.

In her book, Psaki also accused Biden’s critics of wanting to smear the president and make him appear “insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed.”

“Psaki’s new account is at odds with fact-checks at the time, news agencies’ photos from the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, and on-the-record statements from Gold Star families who were there,” Axios reported. “The Associated Press photographer on the tarmac snapped two photos of Biden looking at his watch twice and 10 minutes apart, as fact-checkers at USA Today and Snopes noted soon afterward.”

“Psaki also mistakenly cited a passage from The Washington Post to bolster her account. The sentences she quoted were from USA Today’s fact-check article — not the Post,” the media outlet continued. “That article noted Biden looked at his watch at the end of the dignified transfer of the troops’ bodies but also concluded that ‘photos and video show [Biden] also checked his watch during the ceremony.'”

According to Axios, “Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz told Congress in August of 2023 that ‘while I stood there on the tarmac watching you check your watch over and over again, all I wanted to do was shout out, ‘It’s two f***ing thirty, a**hole.””

“The day after the ceremony on Aug. 29, 2021, Shana Chappell, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, wrote on Facebook: ‘I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????'” the media outlet reported.

“The image of Biden checking his watch during the dignified transfer of the fallen soldiers became a hot point of criticism by Biden’s critics on the right as well as the families of the soldiers,” Axios noted.

Psaki originally did not respond to Axios over the passage in her book. She reconsidered that stance and told the outlet that the “detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the ebook.”

She also attempted to provide further cover for Biden, “The story on Afghanistan is really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters.”

Axios should be given credit for fair reporting here, further charging, “Psaki’s book is the latest instance of current and former Biden administration officials downplaying or misrepresenting controversial episodes from the Afghanistan withdrawal ahead of the 2024 election.”

Gold Star families and conservatives weren’t about to let the Biden administration revise what actually happened that day and they called Psaki out for lying about it:

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