In the tale of President Joe Biden’s perpetual vacation, interspersed with bouts of presidency, a new book revealed how he “exploded in frustration” after a report on the deteriorating situation during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Looking back at the weekend of Aug. 12, 2021, when Biden had departed Washington, D.C. for a getaway to Camp David, The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer detailed the outburst that followed shortly thereafter. Ahead of the release of “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,” Fox News reported on an excerpt covering word that then-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani had fled Kabul.
“Biden exploded in frustration,” wrote Foer of reaction to the report just as the resurgent Taliban was readying to take the capital.
“Give me a break!” the president was said to have shouted.
That same weekend would see some of the most harrowing images from the botched withdrawal as efforts to conduct a rapid evacuation from Hamid Karzai International Airport as Ghani fled showed citizens running along the tarmac surrounding a U.S. military aircraft. Some were so desperate to escape that they clung to the plane as it took off, only to tragically plummet to their death.
Desperate people plunge to death after clinging on departing plane to escape Taliban takeover https://t.co/KlSegW8XFa pic.twitter.com/vMPxyJEoKv
— BizPac Review (@BIZPACReview) August 16, 2021
Foer made note of then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s reaction to “images of Afghans falling from the sky,” and said the also vacationing administration official knew she had to disrupt her personal time to get back to work.
“I’m contemplating coming back,” she reportedly wrote to then-White House chief of staff Ron Klain who was said to have replied, “I’m sorry. I think you need to.”
As the stain of the disastrous withdrawal has remained and the administration had taken steps to keep reports out of the spotlight in what one congressman referred to as “behavior [that] conveys guilt,” Foer’s account detailed how the White House felt “stung” by corporate media criticism that included “the columnists and venerable reporters that Biden’s inner circle respected and tended to heed.”
“…in the thick of the crisis, Biden didn’t have time to voraciously consume the news, but he was well aware of the tough coverage. ‘We’re getting killed,’ he would admit. It frustrated him to no end,” read a portion of the book.
“Either the press is losing its mind, or I am,” the president had reportedly told an aide.
In spite of the coverage, the author continued that the president’s decision on Afghanistan wasn’t swayed by the media or a supposed distaste for “the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy elites.”
“After defying their delusional predictions of progress for so long, [Biden] wasn’t going to back down now,” wrote Foer. “In fact, everything he’d witnessed from his seat in the Situation Room confirmed his belief that exiting a war without hope was the best and only recourse.”
Meanwhile, as various disasters have occurred during the president’s tenure, he has continued to appear to put his personal time ahead of the needs of the American people while seemingly lamenting the responsibility he has been shouldered with.
On Sunday, he contended that his latest trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware was not a vacation, but that he had “no home to go to” as the U.S. Secret Service was said to be securing his Wilmington, Delaware residence. A reported 40 percent of Biden’s presidency had been spent on personal trips away from the White House.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.