Psaki Bombs Again: Americans Stranded

CLAY: Do you remember, because certainly we do, we played this clip for you. Remember how Jen Psaki, Psaki bomb herself, Little Red Lying Hood, how she said how she was really offended when Peter Doocy of Fox News pointed out that we were likely to be stranding, likely to be stranding people in Afghanistan, she had a real issue with the use of the word “stranded.” Let’s listen to that clip and refresh your memory.

PSAKI: First of all, I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are “stranded.” They are not! We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home. We are in touch of them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.

DOOCY: There are no Americans stranded is the White House’s official position on what’s happening in Afghanistan right now?

PSAKI: I’m just calling you out for saying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when I suh — when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home. We are going to bring them home, and I think that’s important for the American public to hear and understand.

CLAY: That might have been important for them to hear and understand, but they can now hear and understand that you were lying, because this is what Pentagon Spokesperson Kirby said just yesterday about people being left behind, a/k/a stranded in Afghanistan American citizens.

WILLIE GEIST: So what does that look like? How does diplomacy get those people out of Taliban controlled Afghanistan?

JOHN KIRBY: It’s not completely unlike the way we do it elsewhere around the world. I mean, we have, uhh, Americans that get stranded in — in — uhhh, in countries all the time.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: First of all, Clay, do you think if Peter Doocy gets an “I’m sorry note” and maybe a fruit basket or something from Jen Psaki, because I think he deserves one after the press secretary there was being so huffy.

CLAY: So many lies did they get caught in so quickly, Buck. It’s different than, hey, if you give me an opinion and the opinion can be right or wrong. But to be so earnest about the fact that no one was going to be stranded and then have your own Pentagon saying, “Oh, we strand people all the time!”

BUCK: Yeah, look, so of course, the Biden administration has the messaging during this has been a disaster because it’s messaging about a disaster, right? They can’t hide from the videos that we’ve all seen, and this is different, as we’ve pointed out, than what you would have in other situations where an authoritarian regime — whether it’s the Iranians, Chinese, the Russians — could shut down things, unrest, and things like that that they don’t like.

I had friends who were texting me, “Hey, I’m texting with so-and-so on the ground right now, in Afghanistan. Here’s what he’s telling me,” or, “Here’s the photo that is being sent out right now, what the checkpoints look like.” So, it’s a very different circumstance as a result of that. They couldn’t really control the messaging.

But on the issue of the… Okay. So you rightly have now fileted that lie like a fish, right? I mean, clearly it was a big lie that they weren’t stranded or they weren’t going to be stranded. What do we do about it at this phase, though? This is where we are all reminded of the fact that the Taliban not only had leverage up to the point when the last — and there’s that now soon-to-be-iconic photo of the last U.S. soldier leaving Afghanistan in the back of a transport plane.

But, Clay, we’re going to have to ask the Taliban very nicely. Sure, we’re going to say, “Oh, if you don’t give us back our people…” But they’re going to say, “Oh, we have to vet. We have our own processes.” And it will be a drip, drip, drip of people able to leave. And this, I think, best case scenario, of Americans.

By the way, the Afghans who were left behind? I hope God is with them and keeps them safe, because we will not be able to do much for them right now at all. There’s already reports of door-to-door executions going on. But put aside the Afghans that were left behind who were with us. The Americans that were left behind, the Taliban’s got these great bargaining chips. Bargaining chips that they’re going to use very effectively in the weeks and months ahead. That’s what we’re up against.

CLAY: And not only the Taliban, Buck, all of these other terrorist organizations which could, in theory, be able to either kidnap and try to hold for ransom American citizens. They could torture and kill American citizens, as we have seen many of these different terror groups do in an effort to have videos go viral.

A way to think about it, I think, is there were some 50-some-odd people who were caught in the embassy in Tehran back in the day with Jimmy Carter and all the chaos that befell that situation. There are hundreds of American citizens now left behind in Afghanistan. How many of those American citizens are in danger of violent death and/or terror?

I would think all of them, and it’s not just from the Taliban — who I don’t think we can trust — but, we know ISIS-K is trying to blow up everything. We know Al-Qaeda is moving into Afghanistan. There are a lot of different groups over and above the Taliban that could be taking advantage of these American citizens.

BUCK: We heard from General McKenzie yesterday, specifically about how many ISIS-K — what they describe as the “hardcore fighters” — there are. Remember this is the Islamic State Khorasan branch, because the Islamic State project that began in Syria and spread into Iraq very quickly under the Obama administration — we all remember the rise of ISIS, which they bizarrely insisted on calling ISIL.

Now, no one called it that. But the people in the Obama administration were very high on thinking they were just smarter than everybody else. That group set up franchises, effectively, all over. ISIS-K is the Afghanistan franchise. That’s how they refer to Khorasan. As I’ve explained, it comes from a hadith about black banners marching all the way to Jerusalem from what is today’s Afghanistan. There’s a whole end-of-days thing, Clay, but we won’t get into that right now.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: But here’s what the general says about how many of those fighters — not Taliban, ISIS-K fighters — are in Afghanistan.

MCKENZIE: They remain a very lethal force, and I think we would assess that probably there are at least 2,000 hardcore ISIS fighters in Afghanistan now. And of course, many of those come from the prisons that were — that were opened a few — a few days ago. So that number is up and is probably as high as it’s ever been in quite a while.

BUCK: It’s higher than that. I can tell you. Whatever they say the number is right now — having not just read, but written a lot of intelligence assessments and seeing how this stuff gets processed at the top level when it finally is published. If they say 2,000, Clay, I would say it’s more like 10,000. And what’s fascinating to see play out is you have Taliban. You have the Haqqani Network, which is largely Pakistani based, but very involved in the Taliban, as well.

Now, of course, all over Afghanistan — already at the senior leadership level of the Taliban — you have Al-Qaeda, you have ISIS. You have these different factions that are all in this soup of jihad-ism, and while the Taliban right now may find it in their interest in their being — “pragmatic,” is the word of the day this Biden administration is using. ISIS-K could… The most committed often wins. They could start making some gains. They could all of a sudden… “Who knows how that is going to play out?” is what I’m saying. So we’re in a volatile situation even beyond just the realities of the Taliban.

CLAY: It’s possible that Afghanistan will descend into full-on civil war with multiple different terrorists or terrorist-aligned organizations controlling different parts of this country, feuding with each other, making it that much more difficult, I would imagine, for American intelligence — which has already failed on an epic level in Afghanistan — to be able to figure out who the most dangerous aspects and proponents of terrorism in this country are.

All the while, not having an easy method by which to get people out of the country. We played in the first hour — and I think it’s significant, Buck — a family of four from Houston. They have American passports. They are American citizens. They were unable to get out of Afghanistan. Can you even imagine? Can you even imagine what it is like to be an American citizen who is now shut into Afghanistan with our troops having abandoned you and left you?

BUCK: Oh, it’s a nightmare.

CLAY: It’s terrifying.

BUCK: It’s a nightmare. But think about it, Clay, we know that going back to the stranded Americans — yes, “stranded” is the word.

CLAY: It’s the right word.

BUCK: This is a… It feels more like a de facto hostage situation, right?

CLAY: Yes. That’s what I think everybody is afraid of.

BUCK: They were prevented from actually getting to the airport by the Taliban. You have to wonder why they did that and whom they chose. Remember the lists that they said, the American lists that were handed out. The Biden administration said they were, and then they said they weren’t. Some were prevented from getting to the airport. But as we go forward here, I think the idea would have been early on, “Oh, do you know what? Fine, we’ll pull out of Afghanistan, Clay.

“But we’ll make sure that we isolate Afghanistan. We’ll make sure we bring all this diplomatic pressure to bear so the Taliban knows that there’s still a pariah state and all the rest of it.” That’s going to be a lot harder while our diplomats are meeting with them in Qatar or the UAE or whatever, as well as other diplomats around the world. We’re not going to be able to tell China, for example, “Hey all these business projects you’re planning in Afghanistan, the pipelines you’re thinking about, whatever it may be, don’t do that.”

Because the Chinese will look at us and say, “They’ve got your people. Don’t you want your people back?” The leverage this creates for them diplomatically is going to mean… I think they’re smart enough to see, at least over the next six to 12 months. They will enmesh themselves into the international community. You will have Taliban dudes walking around the capitals of our allies having meetings within six to 12 months. That’s what I think’s going to happen.

CLAY: Here also… Let me just mention, the CNN, the family of four. I can’t get out of my head right now what the dad is hearing from the mom about being stuck in Afghanistan right now. According to Clarissa Ward’s story, they went over to go visit a family. Everybody who is married. Buck, you’re not married right now. Any time you make a bad decision as the dad.

BUCK: And never have been by the way.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Can I just say?

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: The Internet says I am married. That is false.

CLAY: Yeah. (laughing)

BUCK: That has been pointed out to me recently. I have never been married.

CLAY: Let me give you a little tip right now. As soon as you are the dad, any time you make a decision that is bad, your wife remembers your errors forever. So I’m just trying to picture, in addition to the fact that you are stuck in Afghanistan, if the dad was the one who said, “Oh, yeah, trust me. We can get over to Afghanistan and go visit the family. The Taliban’s not going to take over the country right now. We’ll be fine. We’ll take the kids. We’ll fly over from Houston. Everything will go smooth.”

I don’t know. That poor dad right now, if he… Can you imagine? Every married man out there right now, if you were the dad who had been like, “Hey, we got time to get to Afghanistan. We’re going to go visit the family. Everything is going to go fine.” That woman — they’re sitting in some awful place right now unable to get out — she’s just over and over again saying, “You said this was going to be fine. You said we were going to be able to get out.”

BUCK: Oh, you do not want to be the dad holding up an old map saying, “I know where I am. The Khyber Pass is just around the corner. Pakistan is right there.”

CLAY: I don’t want to be the man who messes up the family trip to Disney World. I can’t even imagine the dad who messed up the family trip to Afghanistan and now has the whole family stuck over there.