When it comes to the catastrophe transpiring in Afghanistan, it appears that the Biden administration never runs out of ways to embarrass itself.
The latest humiliation comes from Vice President Kamala Harris during her Asia trip.
In Singapore on Monday, as C-SPAN recorded, Harris was part of a joint news conference with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Naturally, she had to field a question about the Afghanistan debacle, and naturally, she bumbled it.
The moment occurred shortly after the news conference was opened up to questions. A Reuters reporter noted how Afghans have been trampled and have died as they attempted to flee the country that American forces had fought in for two decades. Additionally, the reporter stated there are still American citizens stuck in the capital city of Kabul.
She then said she understood that Harris agreed with the Afghanistan withdrawal, but wanted to know the vice president’s assessment of what went wrong.
In her response, Harris was typically evasive, saying she understood why the question was asked and that she thought there was going to be “plenty of time to analyze” what happened regarding the troop withdrawal.
She said that at the moment, though, the Biden administration is “singularly focused on evacuating American citizens, Afghans who worked with us and Afghans who are vulnerable” such as children and women. Harris said the administration feels a deep commitment, and the U.S. certainly has a responsibility, in making it a priority to make sure that those who helped America are safe.
Boilerplate comments from an official representing the Biden White House, in other words. A news release would have claimed as much.
Then things seemed to get tougher for the VP.
“I mean the president has, I think, shown great emotion in expressing, uh, sadness about some of the images we have seen, but we cannot be, um, in any way, um, distracted in any way from what must be our primary mission right now, which is evacuating people from that region who, who deserve to be evacuated,” Harris said.
While the stumbling “uhs” and “ums” were bad enough, Harris’ bearing was even worse. Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson even wrote on Twitter that it appeared Harris needed to reference her notes in order to explain how Biden feels.
It’s unclear whether Harris was actually checking her notes, as Johson wrote, or was merely stumbling with an answer because she knew she had to choose her words carefully. But either way, the moment was not reassuring.
