President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Tuesday refused to commit to leaving U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan until evacuations were complete.
A reporter asked Sullivan whether, if evacuations were not complete by August 31, 2021, “there are Americans and Afghan allies who remain there, will U.S. troops stay until everyone is out or will they leave?”
“So I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals,” Sullivan responded. “What I’m going to do is stay focused on the task at hand, which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible and we will take that day by day.”
“So, you can’t commit to bring back every American … ?” the reporter asked.
Sullivan did not respond and instead called on another reporter.
WATCH:
Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refuses to commit to evacuating all Americans from Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/zJT0NC7fEv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 17, 2021
Reporter Philip Wegmann followed up by asking essentially the same question: “When I followed up to ask if the US government would ensure their evacuation, Sullivan told me, ‘that’s what we’re doing right now, we have asked them all to come to the airport to get on flights and take them home.'”
When I followed up to ask if the US government would ensure their evacuation, Sullivan told me, "that's what we're doing right now, we have asked them all to come to the airport to get on flights and take them home." https://t.co/Doo93E1kEj
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 17, 2021