Biden Needs To Start Answering Basic Questions About The Afghanistan Evacuation

As the August 31 deadline for America’s exit from Afghanistan looms, and the evacuation of American citizens and Afghans continues amid worsening chaos at the Kabul airport, the Biden administration is refusing to answer basic questions about the situation on the ground.

The most basic, burning question is, how many Americans are still trapped behind enemy lines? The White House is happy to trot out detailed numbers every day about how many flights have taken off and how many people total have been evacuated in however many hours. But administration officials won’t say with any certainty how many Americans they think are still out there.

They’ve also been denying the reality that many Americans are unable to get to the Kabul airport. When White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week that there were no Americans stranded in Afghanistan, it contradicted dozens of news reports chronicling just the opposite: Americans saying they are stranded, unable to get past Taliban checkpoints and into the airport, pleading for help from their government.