President Joe Biden discussed Afghanistan just hours before Fox News and Steve Scalise accused him of ignoring it.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise on Wednesday appeared on Fox News to complain that President Joe Biden has not been focusing on problems in Afghanistan. But it was just hours after Biden addressed the nation on Afghanistan.
On "Fox & Friends," host Steve Doocy falsely claimed that in a speech Biden gave Tuesday, "rather than talk about Afghanistan, he talks about the win in the House on this reconciliation bill."
Doocy then argued that Biden was working on the bill is "all week long" instead of thinking about Afghanistan.
Scalise agreed with the claim and added that "instead of spending every minute working to get them [Americans out Afghanistan] ... he was wasting precious time this week burning the phones up, pressuring Democrats to vote for a $5 trillion dollar spending bill."
But what Doocy and Scalise claimed is not true.
Biden made a speech to the country on Tuesday afternoon that addressed multiple topics. He spoke about the infrastructure bill but also made extended remarks on the situation in Afghanistan, paying particular attention to efforts to evacuate Americans.
"As of this afternoon, we've helped evacuate 70,700 people, just since August the 14th; 75,900 people since the end of July," said Biden.
He also noted that he had a virtual meeting with the other leaders of the G-7 nations, as well as the heads of the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union.
Biden said, "In short, all of us agreed today that we're going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our closest partners to meet the current challenges we face in Afghanistan, just as we have for the past 20 years."
The complaint made by Scalise echoes that of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who on Tuesday complained that Democrats in Congress were continuing to work on infrastructure and voting rights as the evacuation of Afghanistan was underway.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
